For students, it’s natural to wonder when you might ever need to know what an iambic pentameter is or the exact date of the Louisiana Purchase. So businesses and teachers have teamed up to make some of the lessons taught in public schools more meaningful.

Business leaders from across the state have joined together with teachers and education experts to develop a curriculum that adds a dose of real world business to the reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmetic lessons middle school students are taught now. The lesson plans, called Teaching Tomorrow’s Entrepreneurs Today, were developed under the auspices of the NJ PRO Foundation Inc., the research affiliate of the New Jersey Business & Industry Association (NJBIA), and will be showing up in classrooms this fall.

The curriculum consists of eight lesson plans addressing different aspects of small business management and entrepreneurship—business planning, finance, marketing, regulation, and communication. The lessons are designed to combine material required by the New Jersey Core Curriculum Content Standards, which outlines what all students must be taught, with the business skills students will need in real work settings. The project has been endorsed by the NJ Department of Education, the New Jersey Education Association, as well as numerous corporations, including AT&T and PSE&G.

“This curriculum is not intended to replace the material middle school students learn now, but to teach it in a way that has a more meaningful context,” NJBIA President Philip Kirschner said. “With these lesson plans, students will learn how the material they are taught in school today will apply to the real world when they enter the job market.”

“For years, employers in virtually every industry have complained about the lack of fundamental business skills in their entry-level workers,” NJBIA President Philip Kirschner said. “Now, business leaders and educators have stepped up to the plate to do something about it. The NJ PRO Small Business Curriculum is a wonderful example of how business and education can join together to make the education our children receive more thorough and more meaningful.”

“Teachers need resources to design lessons that are meaningful to students now and after they leave school. Not only does this curriculum provide those resources, it demonstrates how our children win when educators and the business community come together,” said Joyce Powell, President of the New Jersey Education Association. “And because classroom teachers participated in the creation of this curriculum, the lesson plans are well-constructed and easy to implement.”

Lesson plans cover topics like branding and graphic design in marketing; the history of entrepreneurship and its function in society; what communication skills employers look for when hiring a new employee; how to formulate a budget for a start-up business; the process of creating a marketable invention and bringing it to market; and what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur.

In the technology curriculum, for instance, students are asked to develop and design a new product using math, science and technology principles. Working in small groups, the students will list problems they could solve with inventions, develop a solution to one of those problems, create patent drawings for their ideas, and develop business plans for bringing their new product to market.

Each lesson plan takes approximately five class periods, assuming a 45-minute class schedule. The plans include plenty of hands-on activities and allow for maximum flexibility for implementation in middle schools throughout New Jersey.

Teachers will be able to access the lessons free of charge at www.njprofoundation.org. Each lesson plan contains a lesson overview, specific learning objectives, the resources and materials needed to deliver the lesson effectively, a list of new business vocabulary words, the Core Curriculum Content Standards addressed, student activity sheets, and related career information. Teachers could also use one of several New Jersey Business vignettes, which are examples of real businesses and how education is important to them.

“This is a way that makes learning more meaningful and more fun,” said NJ PRO Executive Director Sara Bluhm. “So we’ve tried to make the lessons as real as possible to show students how classroom learning can one day help them in their careers. Students don’t just learn what an entrepreneur is, they become one.”

At the culmination of the lesson, each group makes an oral presentation on their inventions to the class. They are expected to present as if they were speaking to a potential client.