The stock market means different things to different people. Some view it as using skill and wisdom to decide when to buy and when to sell. Others view it as glorified gambling, saying anything gained or lost is the product of luck.

Whether one invests or not, the stock market has an impact on everyday life and the country's economy. Everything from the price of gas to the national debt is affected by the stock market.

The market depends on its investors. And who are the newest investors? Youths, of course.

Recently, Y-Press interviewed Lauren Seyler, 16, and Felicia Inman, 15, two sophomores at Greenfield Central High School who played a Stock Market Simulation offered by the Indiana Council on Economic Education, and Gary Lynch, who designed it.

Lynch, who teaches economics at Indiana University Northwest in Gary, and partner Cookie Van Scoyk started the stock market simulation 12 years ago. It is offered for Grades 4 through 12 and adults. Participation has increased from 78 teams in 1989 to about 2,500 today. Any school can take part in the program designed to educate participants in economics, finance, current events, math, social studies and technology.

The simulation is a 10-week program allowing students to play the stock market without having to invest any real money. Students do research and then choose to invest in common stocks, initial public offerings and mutual funds. They also earn interest on any cash balance. They then track their investments via computers at their school.

Although neither student had previous experience in the stock market, they were eager to learn.

"Before I played the game, even though my dad did teach me a lot, I had a lot of questions. But when we got to play, I understood it better. It was a lot more real than just seeing it on television," Felicia said.

"I was basically taught how I want to invest my money in the future, in what stocks, and basically how it is controlled, and when to buy and sell."

Before they invested, the students studied stock reports and looked at records. "We looked at our stock and watched it over a six-month period. You could see how stable it was," Felicia said.

In addition to doing research, the students learned to pay attention to their own likes and dislikes. "Seeing how the stores that we like do in business -- that's how we pretty much decided," Lauren said.

Lynch's goal is to teach not only the basics of the market, but other skills as well.

"When the students participate, I'm hoping that they'll learn about national and international events because these events affect the performance of the market," he said. "It teaches students how to work together. You learn how to recognize yourself as a member of a team. You really learn a lot from each other without having your teacher standing up in front of you."

Even so, some may argue that although informative, the game encourages the gambling side of the market, because it is played for only 10 weeks. But the creator and the participants disagree.

"I think it's important for students to understand that when you participate in the market, especially with real money, it involves risk," Lynch said. "It's not gambling. Gambling comes into the stock market when you buy a stock and you hold it for a couple of weeks or a couple of months and then turn around and sell it."

The best stock strategy is long-term, he said. "Over the long haul, the stock market has always outperformed everything else."

It's never too early to start saving and investing, Lynch said.

"I tell my students there's no time like the present, and if you can just put away $25 a month and do it through thick and thin, 40 years or 50 years later you're gonna have a pretty tidy nest egg," he said.

The students seem to understand the risks.

"I think the stock market game shows a lot of teen-agers how real life is and how you can't just put your money into one thing and expect to (become) a millionaire. You have to take chances. You have to watch how it's progressing," Lauren said.

Both participants acknowledge that risks have been heightened by instability since Sept. 11.

"We're going to get over what happened, but we'll never completely recover. But it's something that we're going to have to do. If we can come together, we can bring up the stock market," Felicia said.

"If everybody got back to the normal life that we used to have, then I think that it would go up. But you have to have faith," Lauren said.

With the risks and current situation in mind, should youths participate in the stock market? Our students think so.

"It's a life lesson for you," Lynch said. "It's not just an academic exercise. You learn an awful lot, and not just from picking stocks and tracking them, but by learning what it is you have to know in order to make intelligent decisions in terms of investing."

Neither student has tested her newfound knowledge with real investments, although Felicia did advise her father a few years ago. "My dad gave me a paper and said, 'If I had $100,000, what would I do with it?' I picked like two stocks and he put in $10,000 -- $5,000 in each stock. Sometimes it was successful, sometimes it wasn't, but it was more of a lesson to me than it was the money involved."

She'll know when she's ready to invest her own money. "You can either lose it or you can win big, but it's one of those things where you just have to say, 'Hey, I'll go for it,' or 'Hey, I won't.' It's your decision. You can't have someone else decide for you."

Reporters: Chad Dyar, 13, Joe Morgan, 13, Peter Cowden, 13.