LifeSmarts at the State House

(FOX Providence) - The March Madness college basketball tournament is underway, so now it’s time for “March Smartness”.

The LifeSmarts competition will be held at the State House Friday, with students from seven Rhode Island high schools putting their consumer information skills to the test.

The Rhode Island Jump$tart Coalition organized the event and CollegeBoundfund is serving as its main sponsor this year.

Peter Kerwin from the Rhode Island Higher Education Assistance Authority , joined The Rhode Show to talk about LifeSmarts.

Have you picked a bracket? Can you tell us where the upsets will happen?

If you got a look at my NCAA bracket, you wouldn’t be asking me that. March Smartness—the LifeSmarts Competition has brackets, buzzer beaters and some great matchups. It’s a competition which pits seven high school teams against each other, answering questions from five key consumer areas—personal finances, technology, environment, health and safety, and consumer rights and responsibilities. Barrington, Burrillville, Coventry, Lincoln, North Providence, and North Smithfield High Schools, along with Tolman High School of Pawtucket will be taking part.

The event is held at the State House, with matches being held in the Governor’s State Room, the House Lounge and Hearing Room 313. It’s a quiz bowl format and there will be eight matches throughout the morning leading up to the championship math at 12:30 p.m. in the State Room. Between the students, the coaches, the volunteers serving as judges, timekeepers and scorekeepers, and the state officials who will be dropping by, it’s going to be a very busy day.

How did CollegeBoundfund get involved?

We’ve done a lot of work with the Rhode Island Jump$tart Coalition , which does a great job promoting financial literacy efforts in our high schools all over the state. They understand we need to arm young people with this basic consumer and financial information so they can handle the life challenges of dealing with college loan debt, credit cards, buying a car and a home.

This is the sixth year they have been running this particular event and it’s a great way to get young people engaged in thinking about consumer issues and the skills they need to develop. If you go to their website at rijumpstart.org , you’ll find a link to the LifeSmarts competition. I’m going to be there cheering on my Lincoln Lions, but it’s not going to be easy. They’ve got to get past the North Providence team which has dominated this event, winning four of the last five competitions. Only Barrington High School managed to wrest the title from them in 2007 and they will be back looking for another shot at winning the Consumer’s Cup.