It's All Here

Looking for materials to help you give a seminar on investing? Need lesson plans for a presentation to local schoolchildren about savings plans? Until now, the financial education resources of the U.S. government have been like a library without a card catalog: you figured there was probably a lot of great stuff in there, but there was no central resource to tell you what was available, and where. But the new online Federal Financial Education Directory, recently unveiled by the Treasury Department, should change all that.

The directory, available at www.treas.gov/financialeducation, is a listing of more than 25 separate resources offered by a wide variety of government agencies and departments on topics such as saving, investing, taxes, home loans, and credit. From the U.S. Mint, there’s “H.I.P. Pocket Change,” a Web site geared for kids in kindergarten through sixth grade; from the Federal Reserve bank of Dallas, there “Building Wealth: A Beginner’s Guide to Securing Your Financial Future,” an educational Web site for individuals and families; and from the Bureau of the Public Debt (part of the Treasury Department), there’s “Money Math: Lessons for Life,” a series of lesson plans for teachers.