Turning the Consumer Jungle into a Credit Smart Community

News provided by

Young Adult Consumer Education Trust

Dec 07, 2011, 12:43 ET

TUCSON, Ariz., Dec. 7, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- The Consumer Jungle website (www.consumerjungle.org) is now a credit smart community, providing tweens, teens and young adults a new array of lessons, blogs, games and interactive tools.

This top rated financial literacy website makeover is a collaboration between the University of Arizona's Take Charge America Institute (TCAI) and the Young Adult Consumer Education Trust (YACET).

Middle school and high school students have little or no mandatory public school instruction in financial literacy, said YACET founder and consumer attorney Robert Parlette. "We have an extremely sophisticated financial system and these kids have no idea how it works. Many of the ideas for the Consumer Jungle website are grounded in the lessons we've learned from litigating consumer issues."

Students vet the website and provide online blog and article content, as well as online contests and encourage their peers to create videos, comic strips and personal stories about what it's like to make that first big purchase.

Over the past two years, with the assistance and support of Parlette and fellow attorney Scott Kane, Consumer Jungle was designed to be interactive, with the content screened by TCAI's professional staff but not written by adults to lecture students who visit the website.

"Online education is becoming an important part of how we learn. Because of its immediacy, it offers help with real time decisions if someone is making an online purchase or just researching their options," said Michael Staten, PH.D., and TCAI director. "Gaming is another important online learning tool, rewarding the player who makes their way through the different difficult learning scenarios. It makes our visitors hungry to learn more."

"We want our web visitors to return, knowing this is a safe resource and to recommend it to their friends," Dr. Staten said. "We think of Consumer Jungle as a way for our visitors to become part of a credit smart community."

YACET's founders and trustees Robert Parlette and Scott Kane brought their lifetime of work in the world of consumer law and partnered with TCAI, leveraging their passion to bring financial literacy to youth with the educational expertise to broaden the scope of Consumer Jungle. For more information on Consumer Jungle, YACET and the UA's Take Charge Institute which is part of the Norton School of Family and Consumer Sciences visit http://tcainstitute.org/.

SOURCE Young Adult Consumer Education Trust