What is Exchange City?
Exchange City is a special city built for kids and run by kids. It also is a nationally recognized, innovative economics, government and civics program supporting a new vision of teaching and learning about American enterprise, entrepreneurism and government. Exchange City is both a hands-on learning lab site and a curriculum that is used in the classroom and in the home.
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Who participates in Exchange City?
Fourth, fifth and sixth grade students, their teachers, parents and adult volunteers participate in the Exchange City experience. Exchange City Summer Camp programs serve students ten through sixteen.
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What do young people do at Exchange City?
In Exchange City, students work to earn paychecks by operating the stores, financial institution, post office, broadcast center, technology shop, newspaper, distribution center and city hall. They also play roles as consumers as they spend and manage their money. Students take out business loans, pay taxes and bills, market products, make payroll and live within the laws they make for the City.
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What are the benefits of Exchange City?
Exchange City provides students with a realistic opportunity to experience how economic and government concepts are used in the real world and gives them the real-life opportunities to apply critical math, reading, writing and public speaking skills. By participating in the program, students gain valuable work-force readiness, personal finance management skills and a chance to work cooperatively in teams while experiencing the joy and fun of learning. Students also learn about citizenship in a free enterprise system.
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Who started Exchange City?
Exchange City was created by The Learning Exchange® in Kansas City, Missouri. The Learning Exchange is a national leader in development and operation of experiential learning systems.

In 2000, The Learning Exchange incorporated a separate company, Experiencia, Inc. to lead and support the national expansion of Exchange City and its sister program, EarthWorks®. EarthWorks is a hands-on science program for 3rd and 4th grade students based on the same Immersive Learning™ model as Exchange City.
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How long has Exchange City been in existence?
The first Exchange City opened in 1980. One of the nation’s premier experiential learning programs; Exchange City has been growing and developing since.
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What makes Exchange City different from other programs?
Launched more than 20 years ago, Exchange City was founded on the principle that students learn best by doing. The program combines an interactive eight-week classroom curriculum with a day at the Exchange City facility, where elementary students operate all aspects of their own town, from the setting of laws and election of governmental officials to the management of banking and entrepreneurial enterprises in retail, communications and business services. Students participate in over 40 hours of classroom curriculum, facilitated by teachers and parent volunteers who have received specialized training and development. All of the grade-level students within a participating school go through the program together.
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Where are there Exchange City sites?
Exchange City is currently operating in Chicago, Detroit, Kansas City, Memphis, Portsmouth, and Providence.

Exchange City National Locations
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