Making economics click

The challenge

At the STEP UP Playconomics Awards ceremony in December 2025, high school students were invited to give a short, informal presentation about their experience with Playconomics - focusing on what they loved most, learned most or found most surprising.

Representing Jamison High School, Aadil Pathippillil, Ijay Jogesh and Blade Richards spoke about the competition, the chaos, the learning and the way Playconomics changed how they thought about economics and everyday decision-making.

Learning through decisions

For Aadil, the biggest lesson was discovering that “every little choice mattered.”

As he explained,

“one minute I’m thinking about making a genius economic decision, but then the next minute my company is all collapsing due to the fact that I didn’t check the demand.”

What stood out was the realisation that economics was not simply about numbers.

“I actually didn’t realise how much economics just wasn’t numbers - but it’s how every decision is connected to one another.”

Through making decisions, seeing the consequences and working through different strategies, the students developed a practical understanding of concepts including opportunity cost, markets, demand and strategy.

And the learning did not always happen quietly.

“We learned heaps, we argued a lot, we laughed a lot, and somehow we came out on the other side with actual knowledge about opportunity cost, markets, strategy and so much more.”

Seeing economics everywhere

For Blade, the biggest surprise was how quickly the ideas from Playconomics began to appear outside the game.

“What surprised me the most was how Playconomics made us see everyday life differently.”

He described finding himself walking into a shop and suddenly thinking about demand curves, or seeing a price rise and immediately thinking about inflation.“It’s dangerous - we’ve become those people.” Behind the joke was an important shift: economics had moved from something learned in a classroom to something the students could recognise in the world around them.

Competition, collaboration and engagement

Aadil, Ijay and Blade also spoke openly about the competitive side of the experience. Ijay reflected that none of them had expected economics to involve “this much chaos or competition, or yelling at a screen because a virtual market didn’t go our way.” Working together was sometimes fun and sometimes stressful, but that was part of what made the experience memorable.

Blade confirmed: “Yes, we did argue who was right and who was wrong, and yes, it was always worth it.”

The combination of competition, collaboration and repeated decision-making helped turn abstract concepts into something immediate and engaging.

A memorable learning experience

For the students, Playconomics was not simply an economics activity.

“The whole experience has been one of the best things we’ve done this year. We’ve learned real skills and had fun doing it, even when we’re losing - especially when we were losing, actually.”

The invitation to the STEP UP Awards also mattered: “Being invited, recognised, and welcomed like this means a lot.” Their presentation ended in the same spirit in which they approached the experience: “Don’t worry: our Playconomics decisions will not be used to run any real businesses anytime soon, for everyone’s safety.” The reflections from Jamison High School capture what STEP UP aims to make possible: students learning economics by making decisions, experiencing consequences, debating strategies and beginning to see economic thinking in everyday life - while genuinely enjoying the process.

Make economics feel real for your students

Give students the chance to learn economics by experimenting with economic and financial decisions, seeing the consequences unfold in front of their eyes - building confidence with core concepts while helping them recognise how economics shapes everyday life.