August SmartStart

LifeSmarts Prepares Youth to "Adult"

It’s not just a figure of speech. This generation really can’t "adult." From managing their personal finances to succeeding in the workplace, many millennials as well as those in Generation Z admit that they lack the basic life skills needed to manage general life. They also believe their employability skills, including communication skills, teamwork, and problem solving, could be stronger. Students who participate in LifeSmarts are better prepared to succeed as employees who can fill the workplace skills gap. LifeSmarts equips these young people to enter college and careers by providing abilities and experiences that set them up to transition efficaciously to adulthood.

With a successful history spanning thirty years, LifeSmarts participants continue to prove they can "adult" and can capably lead the next generation in changing the world we live in for the better.

Welcome to the 30th Anniversary Season of LifeSmarts!

We are open for our 30th LifeSmarts Season!
We are so excited to launch our 30th LifeSmarts season! For the first time ever, you can update existing LifeSmarts teams, move students to alumni or inactive status, and more!

We’ve made it all incredibly easy for you – whether you are a new or experienced coach. Read the "How to LifeSmarts" publication to find out exactly how to get started for our 30th season.

Special things to note:

Students who registered last year have been moved up one grade level. This can easily be adjusted by the coach if needed.
You can delete a student from a team, move a student to another/new team, change team captains, change team types, and more.
You may delete any teams that you no longer need once you move students on that team to another team or to alumni or inactive status.
Students may be on a Varsity or Junior Varsity Team as well as two other team types if needed such as BPA, 4-H, FBLA, FCCLA, or SkillsUSA.

Be certain to read the updated publication and contact us with any questions you have.

Many updates to our website!
Over the summer we have made many noticeable updates to our website and will make additional updates throughout the next few weeks. One major goal has been to provide our coaches and students with better site navigation from the Learn, Compete, Connect and Communicate menus on the Student, Educator, Coach, and Coordinator pages, so that you can easily find what you need. This is already in place and proving to be very helpful.

Many new pages have been created and are populated with new or updated documents to help you promote and share about LifeSmarts.

More new resources coming
BOLO for our new 2023-2024 LifeSmarts Vocabulary starting in September and our new versions of the LifeSmarts StudySmart Guides as well as updates to all the study resource pages across the site.

Junior Varsity Virtual National Championship
In another first, we will host our first-ever LifeSmarts Junior Varsity National Championship next May. All State Champion Junior Varsity teams will be invited to compete online using our QuizBowl Pro buzzers and Zoom. More details to follow but get excited for your Junior Varsity competitors!

FCCLA Level 1 Competition
FCCLA Level 1 competition to qualify teams for the FCCLA / LifeSmarts Knowledge Bowl will open on August 16 this year. Details will soon be posted on the LifeSmarts FCCLA webpage and on the FCCLA Website. The deadline to compete is September 27 at midnight EST. The forty FCCLA / LifeSmarts Knowledge Bowl teams with the highest scores on this quiz will be invited to compete in-person at the FCCLA National Fall Conference in Birmingham, AL, November 10-12. Let us know if we can help in any way!

4-H Summer Challenge
Attention 4-H Varsity and Junior Varsity Teams! Get ready to take part in the 4-H Summer Online Challenge! Existing teams can login and make any needed adjustments to their team and also select 4-H along with Varsity or Junior Varsity as a team type. New teams are also welcome to register and learn about LifeSmarts while they compete! Beginning August 4 until August 31 at midnight EST, 4-H teams will be able to test their knowledge in the 4-H Summer Challenge. The top scoring Junior Varsity level 4-H team as well as the top scoring Varsity level 4-H team will earn cash prizes. Questions? Contact Cheryl or visit the LifeSmarts 4-H page. Good luck!

September TeamSmarts opens September 1
LifeSmarts competition kicks off next month with new vocabulary and questions and our first monthly TeamSmarts Challenge on the topic of Health and Safety. What is TeamSmarts? TeamSmarts, the LifeSmarts web-based team competition, is a great practice tool. These monthly quizzes show up as a link under your team captain’s "Quizzes" tab. Teams may work together to take this 100-question quiz before the September 30th deadline. Remember to keep your eye on the play clock since all LifeSmarts quizzes are timed. $100 cash prizes will be awarded to the top-scoring Varsity, Junior Varsity, 4-H, BPA, FBLA, FCCLA, and SkillsUSA teams! Get your team in the game today!

We had terrific competitions with our partner organizations this summer. Here are just a few highlights:

FBLA: Congratulations to the winners of the 2023 LifeSmarts FBLA Challenge held in Atlanta, GA, in late June.
First Place Team: C - Moksha Dave* and Siddharth Bhumpelli, IL – Tara Pendleton, Adviser
Second Place Team: D - Leo Guo* and Aditya Anantaraman, CA - Joshua Stinson and Laura Rikli, Advisers, and
Third Place Teams: A - Hunter Nelson* and Johan Nino-Espino, NC - Kurt Garner, Adviser; and L - Nathan Hong* and Hannah Adams, PA - Jessica Sundling, Adviser.
Other teams who finished in the top eight were: G = Xin Wu* and Marcel Tuceacov, CA - and Laura Rikli, Advisers;H = Aditya Kirubakaran* and Archisa Arora, NJ - Nikita Patil, Adviser;N = Cade Hosier* and Reid Fletcher, NE – Jacob Shaffer, Adviser; B = Emily Jeglum* and Julie Stenson, ND –Wendy Grote, Adviser.
Thanks and congrats to all the fantastic teams who competed and their advisers/ coaches as well as our wonderful partners at FBLA!

FCCLA – Congratulations to the winners in the 2023 National FCCLA / LifeSmarts Knowledge Bowl!
Fourteen top-notch FCCLA / LifeSmarts Knowledge Bowl Teams vied for the top prize in Denver, CO, this summer. Congratulations to the top eight teams:
First Place – Selah Gold, Selah High School, Selah, Washington
Second Place – Campbell High School, Campbell, MO
Third Place – Clarkton High School "Reindeer Smarties," Clarkton, MO
Rounding out the top eight teams were:
Butler Tech Ross, OH; Mason County High School, KY; East Central High School, IN; West Central High School, SD; and Bradford High School, TN.

SkillsUSA – LifeSmarts partners with SkillsUSA as a member of their Technical Committee for the National Health Knowledge Bowl. This competition, held in Atlanta, GA, involves both Secondary and Post-Secondary levels.
Congratulations to the following medalists:
High School Gold – Team J – William T McFatter Technical College, Davie, FL
High School Silver – Team N – Somerset County Academy for Health & Medical Sciences, Bridgewater, NJ
High School Bronze – Team I – Temple City High School, Temple City, CA
College Gold – Gwinnett Technical College, Lawrenceville, GA
College Silver – Bay Path RVT High School, Charlton, MA"
College Bronze – Northshore Technical C.C. – Hammond Campus, Hammond, LA
Congratulations to the 23 high school teams and the 7 collegiate teams who participated and special thanks to our great SkillsUSA partners!

LifeSmarts Exhibit and Workshops at National TSA
Superstar LifeSmarts coaches Megan Pintus and Nicole Shipman from West Virginia, along with three TSA members of the outstanding 2023 Delaware State Champion LifeSmarts Team from Delaware 4-H hosted an informational exhibit and workshop on LifeSmarts at the National Technology Student Association Conference in Louisville, KY, this summer. We so appreciate the excellent job each of them did and look forward to great results!

Norton Wild Card Applications are coming soon!
LifeSmarts and Norton have renewed their partnership for the 2023-24 program year so that new LifeSmarts teams may apply for Norton Wild Card bids to compete in the 2024 National LifeSmarts Championship. This partnership increases the LifeSmarts program’s reach in under-resourced communities and provides direct support to qualified teams to attend and compete at Nationals. LifeSmarts invites eligible teams to apply from September 1 through November 10, 2023. Ten LifeSmarts Norton Wild Card Teams will be selected through an application process, and teams will be provided with funding to ensure participation in the 2024 National LifeSmarts Championship. Each team will receive a travel stipend of $3,500 to cover transportation and hotel room costs. Coaches will receive an additional $500 stipend.

Eligible teams include:

A new team that has never competed at the National LifeSmarts Championship (preference will be given to students and coaches who have never participated in LifeSmarts before)
From a school in an under-resourced area, community, or state
From a school that, using the National Center for Education Statistics website, fits into one or both of the following criteria:
Designated as a Title 1 School
The student population is ethnically diverse
A Varsity team (students grades 9-12), including those representing a partner organization, (4-H, BPA, FBLA, FCCLA, SkillsUSA, etc.)
Teams who meet the criteria and have two or fewer returning members from a team who competed at Nationals in Washington, DC, in 2022.

For additional details, please visit: https://lifesmarts.org/nortonlifelockwild-card-teams/

Are you excited yet for our 30th LifeSmarts season? There is so much more to come! In future newsletters we will share new LifeSmarts U lessons, our Lesson Sharing Forum, the partnership with Share My Lesson, new Sweepstakes opportunities to compete in the National LifeSmarts Championship, Varsity Wild Card applications…. and new awards and recognition for our 30th LifeSmarts season!

Join us for an unforgettable year in LifeSmarts!

- The LifeSmarts Team