Beginning next week, middle school students in Gwinnett County will have a chance participate in a new innovative program aimed at teaching real-life business and finance applications.

The new JA Discovery Learning Center in Lawrenceville is a partnership between Junior Achievement of Georgia and Gwinnett County Public Schools with help from 30 major corporations including Home Depot, Cisco, Assurant, and Chick-fil-A Foundation.

Sixth graders will participate in JA BizTown which allows them to interact within a simulated macro-economy. Each are given roles from business owner to consumer providing the experience of earning a paycheck and spending the money at the end of the day.

“There maybe be a CEO, CMO, CFO… and they’ll, as a business team, actually run their business, say if it’s Cisco or Home Depot or WestRock, in the course of a four-and-a-half hour macro-simulation,” says Jack Harris, President and CEO of Junior Achievement of Georgia.

It’s the second such center in Georgia.  The JA Chick-fil-A Foundation Discovery Center opened in the Georgia World Congress Center two years and serves middle school students from Atlanta Public Schools, DeKalb County Schools, Fulton County Schools, and Marietta City Schools.

Nathan Anderson, a current eighth grader at Dacula Middle School, participated in the pilot program at that center two years and enjoyed the JA BizTown there.

“I was the CEO of Bank of America, so I had some people under me; I got to kind of control people,” he tells WSB’s Sandra Parrish with a smile.

Anderson will participate in the JA Finance Park for eighth graders this year at the new center in Gwinnett.  The simulation goes a bit further giving students family and job scenarios where they will have to manage a household budget and make purchasing and investment decisions.

“I think a lot of us don’t realize how much our parents do and how much it takes to finance and budget your money and really use it wisely on things that matter,” he says.

Harris says the 25,000 Gwinnett students who participate will first be given curriculum in class so they won’t be coming into the simulations cold.

“They’ve actually been learning these concepts in the classroom; and then when they’re here, they put them into application (and) real-time decision making,” he says.

Harris says the program targets middle school students because it’s still early enough to affect their mindset and attitudes of how they view school in the future.

There are 30 such centers run by Junior Achievement nationwide.