Scout pound

Activity summary

In this activity, young people will learn about what designs feature on different money, and then design their own currency. Then they can use them to practise exchanging their money for another currency, and buy a treat!

Before you begin

• Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Additional help to carry out your risk assessment, including examples can be found here. Don’t forget to make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely.
• Make sure you’ll have enough adult helpers. You may need some parents and carers to help if you’re short on helpers.

Setting up this activity

• Try out Money maps for an introduction to the features of different currencies around the world.
• This activity is in two parts – if you’re running a blended programme you could ‘Make some money‘ during an online session, ready to complete ‘Scout shopping‘ face-to-face.

Step 1: Make some money

1. Everyone should get into small teams of three or four people.
2. Ask everyone what different things they’re used to seeing on coins and notes. They could show everyone some examples of coins and notes.

If you’ve already had a go at Money maps (LINK), ask everyone what features they can remember from different currencies. We’ve added some information above to help get the conversation started.

3. Explain that everyone will be making their own Scout themed currency.
4. Everyone should take a piece of A4 paper, fold it in half twice, and unfold it so that they have a piece of paper with four sections.
5. Each team should chat about different things they could include in their design to represent Scouts, starting with important people. They should make a list of important people they could include in the first section of their paper.
6. Next, teams need to make a list of locations, landmarks and things from nature that are important to them in the next section of their piece of paper.
7. Now, ask groups to choose some quotes or words and write them in the next section of their piece of paper.
8. Everyone should fill the final section of their piece of paper with things that represent their favourite Scout memories or remind them of their Scouts friends.
9. Teams should chat as a group and decide what they’ll include in their designs. They should think about the security features they’ll include so their money can’t be forged. What will stay the same across all of their notes? What will be different on each denomination?
10. Each team should give their currency a name, decide who will be creating the different denominations of banknotes and get drawing. It’s a good idea to make sure each group creates the same denominations to keep it fair.
11. Once everyone’s finished their designs, each group should present their freshly minted money to the rest of the group.
12. The person leading should make a note of some of the key features so they can check for forgeries in the next part of the activity.

Step 2: Scout shopping

1. Now explain that different countries have different money, with different names and different designs. The different moneys are called currencies.
2. The person leading the activity should explain that everyone will be using their new Scout currency to buy some marshmallows to toast. Explain that the marshmallows are sold in Scout Pounds so before they can buy any, they’ll need to exchange their new currency into Scout Pounds. However, if anyone called their currency Scout Pounds, you may need to think on your feet and come up with another name so it doesn’t get confusing.
3. Set up an exchange counter and display the exchange rate, for example two of their currency equals one Scout Pound. It’s up to you whether you change the rate during the activity or not. Remember that the higher the rate, the more money the groups will have to make!
4. Each team should look at the exchange rate and work out how much money they’ll need to create to buy a marshmallow for each group member.
5. Each team should try to work as fast as they can to draw more money and exchange it for Scout Pounds.
6. The person at your exchange counter should check the security features everyone added to their notes. If groups are working too fast and the designs don’t match, the money should be taken away.
7. Everyone should continue until everyone has marshmallows.

If a team finishes early they could help another team.

Step 3: Enjoy marshmallows

1. Once everyone’s made enough money and bought their marshmallows, give everyone their own tea light each and a wooden skewer.
2. Everyone should find a space and toast their marshmallow.
3. While everyone’s snacking, the person leading the activity should explain that in real life the amount of money you can buy is set by the exchange rate (not Scout leaders!). 1 pound might be able to buy 1.3 US dollars, for example – but this doesn’t mean you’re getting more money as things might cost a higher number of US dollars than pounds.

You could explain that shops usually have different ‘sell rates’ and ‘buy rates’ – they charge you some money in return for exchanging your money. If £1 was worth $1.40, you may only get $1.30 for £1, for example. If you had US dollars left over, you may have to give the shop $1.50 to get £1 back. People often shop around to get a good deal.

4. Explain that, just like they exchanged the money with leaders, people can exchange pounds to foreign currencies in places, such as the Post Office.