Loans offer the opportunity to explore exponential growth and compare various interest rates and payment plans. What’s nice about some of the tools in this category is that they can be used by students of varying grade levels. For example, you may want your students may not be familiar with exponential growth, but they can use the online calculators to look for trends, patterns and relationships. If you students are at the level where they understand exponential growth, you may want to have them do calculations on their own and then use the calculators to check their work and explore other ideas. Students can explore college loans, mortgages and home ownership costs, credit card loans and more. The highlighted tool below is a interesting exploration for students because beyond just showing the mortgage payments, it also shows how the loan term would change and how the total amount paid would change if additional monthly payments were made.
Highlighted Tool: Mortgage Loan Calculator:If you have not already created a free account, you'll need to do so to access the Financial Education Problems of the Week.