Herkimer and the Stat Pack Venture Into Money Mathematics

This is the story about 10 students (the STAT PACK) who are working their way through lessons in money mathematics. They are serious students who progress to the point where they can, among many other things, calculate mortgage payments, understand the dangers of making minimum payments on credit card bills, explain a financial retirement savings program, demonstrate how a Ponzi scheme works, and provide illustrations showing the advantages of starting to save early. Their leader in this educational adventure is Herkimer, a cartoon character who provides stimulating questions and activities to enhance the learning process. Herkimer is not the teacher, but he is always present when Pack members have discussions relating to money topics they are studying. He is a Hobbs-like character (for those familiar with the Calvin and Hobbs comic strip) who is visible only to the Pack. Herkimer is not unfamiliar to the students since they had worked with him while learning basic statistics in a previous book titled THE STATISTICAL ODYSSEY OF HERKIMER AND THE STAT PACK.

A major reason for the financial crisis that began in 2008 was a lack of financial literacy in citizens of all ages. Author Sanderson M. Smith is a multiple award-winning mathematics teacher (including the California Presidential Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics and a California National Educator Award) who developed a FINANCIAL MATHEMATICS course at Cate School (Carpinteria, CA) many years ago. This entertaining and easy-to-read book includes lessons and activities that were developed for students in the extremely popular Cate course.