After about two years of planning, building and collaboration, the Augusta area has its first Junior Achievement Discovery Center.
Dozens of local government and business leaders celebrated its completion with a ribbon cutting on Thursday evening.
JA has many of these Discovery Centers across the U.S., including six in Georgia. They create immersive simulations of students’ hometowns to teach them practical life skills. In BizTown, sixth-graders take on the role of a company employee, taxpayer and consumer. In Finance Park, seventh-graders scenarios in which they create and maintain a household budget.
Lottery winner:Powerball ticket worth $100,000 sold in Georgia this week
The local Discovery Center is a 30,000-square-foot facility with several “storefronts” representing businesses and organizations like Chick-fil-A, SRP Federal Credit Union, United Way and Lexus. There is also a miniaturized Evans Towne Center Park as well as a a town hall where students learn about civics and voting, eventually voting among themselves for a mayor of their town.
A handful of students were able to try the Discovery Center out ahead of time, among them Hailey Meyer from Belair K-8 and Derrick Burton from Greenbrier Middle. Meyer said this was a really good experience and she had a lot of fun with. Burton said his favorite part was getting paid and shopping for toys and other products.
This was a collaborative effort between Richmond and Columbia counties’ school boards, who each invested about $5 million into center. Because of this, both counties’ students can take part in JA programs for free after they have completed some in-classroom lessons to learn the needed curriculum beforehand. However, the door is open for other schools.
“To have something like this come to fruition within about 18 months is unheard of,” said JA Georgia Director of Development Ashley Whitaker. “It has been a really fun year and we’re so happy to have this building up and in place.”
The Discovery Center is…
Read the full article here
