spreadsheet lesson
Understanding Recursive Formulas: Investments and Getting out of Debt
Students will use GoogleSheets or Excel to explore the power of investing money and how to get out of debt. By using the formula functions in the spreadsheets students will be able to utilize the software to before multiple calculations and create graphs. One advantage of tusing the software is that students are able to quickly compare different investment strategies for making money and getting out of debt.
Objectives:
Students will move to a scenario where there is a continuing contribution and make a table using a recursive formula.
In column A students will store the headers for the constant information:
Column C will be the number of years
Column D will be the number of months
Column E will be the total amount of money – using the recursive formula and referring to the values in column B.
Objectives:
- Students will create recursive formulas to model financial investments and making payments on a debt.
- Students will use GoogleSheets or Excel to perform that recursive formula multiple times
- Students will understand the effects of interest rate on investments and debt payments
- Students will understand the effects of time on investments and debt payments
- Students will understand the effects monthly contributions on investments and debt payments.
Students will move to a scenario where there is a continuing contribution and make a table using a recursive formula.
In column A students will store the headers for the constant information:
- Initial Amount
- Interest Rate
- Amount Invested each Month
Column C will be the number of years
Column D will be the number of months
Column E will be the total amount of money – using the recursive formula and referring to the values in column B.