People say that coins and notes are going to disappear. There is too much doubt now about how safe it is to handle money in a post COVID-19 world.
Teaching our students about money will need to change dramatically. If we have no coins and notes, then understanding digital money will rely on place value concepts, number operations, decimals and percentages more than ever. The concepts will be invisible, not linked to real object demonstrations. Money lessons using model plastic and paper notes used to be a powerful practical way to demonstrate multiples of 10.
But financial literacy is proving to be a very complex goal to achieve. I am not sure how it will ever be effectively achieved with our primary students in the future as students need to see the value of numbers as real. If you have $100 in the bank you can only spend that much money without borrowing. If you just tap a card against a machine every time you see something to buy then the total amount spent and the total amount remaining to be spent need to be very obvious to the customer. Already the purchase of mobile phone contracts is a nightmare for some families. Imagine if everything becomes a digital purchase.
See our previous (prior to digital) Money Activities here.
See our (prior to digital) Money Photographs here.