Using Spent's Online Poverty Simulation To Teach Family and Consumer Sciences College Students About Poverty

Abstract

Family and consumer sciences (FCS) is an interdisciplinary field in which professionals, regardless of their specialty area, will most likely need to interact with individuals and families in poverty. Several tools are available to help instructors teach college students about poverty. The Community Action Poverty Simulation (CAPS) has been widely used throughout FCS programming (Nickols & Nielsen, 2011); however, other poverty simulations (e. g., Spent https://playspent. org) are not referenced in the literature. More than 100 students in college-level family resource management courses completed the Spent poverty simulation from 2015 through 2019. In this paper, we provide an overview of the state of poverty and the use of poverty simulations in higher education. The authors offer tips for readers looking to implement a virtual poverty simulation in their FCS courses.