12 Easy Entrepreneurship Activities For Any Class (Plus 3 Free Lessons)

In an age of unprecedented global and technological transformation, entrepreneurship-focused activities are more important than ever. Entrepreneurship education encourages creativity, innovation, and collaboration. The right activities can help students appreciate the significance of leadership skills, self-motivation, integrity, and the willingness to fail. What’s more, entrepreneurship skills will help students succeed no matter what career path they choose. Here are 12 hands-on activities and ideas, plus three free lessons, that you can use to integrate entrepreneurship skills into any CTE program. 

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Who Are Our Students?

Today’s students are digital natives! Born after 1997, they’re part of Generation Z (Gen Z). The oldest are in their mid-twenties, and the youngest are finishing up their last days of grade school. They’ve grown up with technology and have never known a world without smartphones. This tech-savvy upbringing shapes how they experience the world, behave, and learn.

Gen Z makes up about 20 percent of the U.S. population, which is around 68 million Americans. According to recent Census Bureau data, over a third of them have jobs or are self-employed, while 51 percent are still students. These students’ needs are changing the way you teach. The traditional classroom model, in which a teacher lectures at the front of the class, doesn’t cut it anymore.

Gen Z students want to learn and succeed, but they need to feel connected and see the relevance of what they’re learning. They want to know why you’re teaching entrepreneurship and how it applies to the real world. Making learning relevant is very important to them. Additionally, growing up immersed in technology has given these students a short attention span, making hands-on learning a useful teaching tool that can keep these students engaged.

What Is Entrepreneurship?

There are various definitions of entrepreneurship out there. You’ll notice the word “business” often comes up when discussing entrepreneurship because it’s usually what people first think of when they hear “entrepreneurship.” However, it goes beyond starting a business and turning a profit. Entrepreneurship is a unique way of life and mindset.

Entrepreneurship is about innovation, solving specific problems, and creating value in society. It also plays a crucial role in economic restructuring, driving economies towards more market-oriented processes. The growth of entrepreneurship impacts local, state, and national economies, influencing their ups and downs.

Why is teaching entrepreneurship to Gen Z students important? According to a recent Forbes article, while older generations often view entrepreneurship as a high-risk career choice, many Gen Z individuals feel quite the opposite. In fact, 93 percent of them have taken steps towards exploring business ownership, with 75 percent expressing a strong desire to launch their own business as a career.

Best Practices for Teaching Entrepreneurship

In an article by Professor Patricia Green, of Babson College, she proposes four complementary techniques for teaching entrepreneurship as a method, rather than a process.

1. Starting a Business

Students like learning entrepreneurship through role-playing, and it’s a highly effective method. One of the best practices for teaching entrepreneurship is having students work on starting their own businesses. By pretending to be entrepreneurs, they get hands-on experience in creating real businesses.

2. Serious Games and Simulations

This generation’s fascination with computer games and gaming has become undeniable, prompting educators to find ways of teaching entrepreneurship through games. Serious “games” have defined rules and gameplay that add an element of fun. These simulations merge learning with play, offering students the chance to tackle real challenges in a virtual setting.

There’s a wide range of entrepreneurial simulations available. Here are just a couple:

• Interpretive Simulation’s Entrepreneur is a simulation of running a retail clothing store
• Knowledge Matters’ Virtual Business Entrepreneurship offers various projects like the Shark Project, in which students pitch their business ideas and seek virtual investments from classmates

3. Design-Based Learning

Herbert Simon, an economist and Nobel Prize laureate, believed that hands-on learning through design is crucial for fields like entrepreneurship. Design isn’t just about making things look good; it’s about observing, thinking critically, being creative, and solving problems – all skills that push us to think deeply.

In traditional entrepreneurship classes, there’s often not enough time spent on sparking creativity and generating new ideas. This means students may miss out on learning how to truly think like entrepreneurs – spotting opportunities and turning them into something real. That’s why we think it’s vital to weave basic design principles into education.

It’s not just about finding opportunities anymore; it’s about creating them. By bringing design into the mix, students can flex their creative muscles to dream up solutions, clarify problems, and even launch their own businesses. This approach isn’t only about teaching entrepreneurship; it’s about empowering students to think big and make a real impact.

4. Reflective Practice

Reflection is a crucial way to turn experiences into knowledge. When we reflect, we think about what happened and try to understand it, which often leads to valuable insights. This makes reflection an essential part of teaching entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is a constant cycle of action, learning, testing, and experimenting.

Activities for Teaching Entrepreneurship

Now that you’ve learned some best practices for entrepreneurship education, let’s dive into some activities to integrate entrepreneurial skills into any program.

1. The Envelope Exercise

For this activity, print fake money and place small amounts in envelopes for individuals or small groups of students. You can choose to give everyone different amounts of money or keep it all equal. Explain that your students’ goal is to increase their investment — and in doing so, use the collaboration and critical thinking skills that are important in entrepreneurship.

Give students 20 to 30 minutes to brainstorm before having each individual or group share their ideas. Odds are high that they will be surprised by how easy it is for them to make money!

2. Defining Problems Exercise

Entrepreneurs find solutions to problems they see in the world. This means that the ability to clearly define problems is important in entrepreneurship careers. To help students build this skill, show them pictures that depict issues (like the one below) and ask them to define the problems they can see.  

Next, ask the students what information they would need to help define the problem better. They’ll want to start coming up with solutions right away but challenge them to focus on clearly defining the issue before trying to resolve it.  

3. Ready, Set, Design!

For this exercise, divide students into groups and give each group a challenge such as thinking of a new way to drink on the go or a new method of communication; keep the challenge open ended. Give each group a bag of everyday materials such as rubber bands, pipe cleaners, and foil. Have students design a product based on the challenge.  

After 15 minutes, have each group present their design and explain why that product meets the challenge. The point of this activity is to get students thinking creatively without getting hung up on the details. 

4. The StartUp Podcast

The StartUp podcast is excellent for sparking conversations about entrepreneurship in class. It illuminates important concepts revolving around entrepreneurial life. You can have students listen to an episode for homework and then facilitate a class discussion on what stood out to them in the episode. 

5. The Business Proposition

This activity will give students practice articulating a value proposition, which is a simple statement summarizing why a customer would choose your business or product. To get started, go over the definition of a value proposition and give students a brief faux business/product idea or have them come up with their own.  

Ask students to express their value proposition in a concise way. It may sound easy but keeping it brief can be challenging. This is a great exercise for helping students develop their entrepreneurial spirit. 

6. Wacky Ideas and 2-Minute Pitch

For this fun entrepreneurship activity, give students any two objects and have them brainstorm ways they can combine the objects into one invention. Then they must define the invention. Have them answer questions such as: 

• What is it? 
• What can it do?  
• Who uses it?  
• How could it be used differently?  

After defining the invention, students have two minutes to pitch it to the class. They should start by introducing themselves, the name of their company, and their invention. Once they’ve made their introductions, have them explain how their invention works and why people need it. 

7. Soda Can Redesign Challenge

For this activity, you’ll need a simple soda can – or pop can, depending on where you live. Have your students work individually or in groups to redesign the can, trying to make it better. Encourage students to think creatively about the changes they would make. If they’re working in groups, they can bounce ideas off each other.

8. Pitch Your Passion

There are many ways to pitch ideas, like the elevator pitch or the one-minute pitch. A great way to get students thinking entrepreneurially is to have them pitch their passion. In this activity, students choose something they’re passionate about, such as a hobby outside of school, an interest, or even a business idea they want to pursue.

9. Marshmallow Challenge

The goal of the Marshmallow Challenge is to build the tallest, free-standing structure possible with a marshmallow on top. Students use uncooked spaghetti, string, and tape to build their structures. Divide students into groups and give them 15-20 minutes to work on their structures. During this time, they’ll problem solve and work together creatively.

11. Free Entrepreneurship Lessons

Realityworks offers a free series of lessons focused on a variety of entrepreneurship-related topics which includes many of the activities mentioned above! These lessons will help teach students about what it’s like to be, think, and act like an entrepreneur. You can teach all three lessons together or choose which ones fit best in your class. These lessons offer an easy way to integrate a brief entrepreneurship program into any CTE course. 

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12. Realityworks Contemporary Entrepreneurship Program

Our ready-to-use Contemporary Entrepreneurship Program helps you create an engaging two-to-three-week unit all about entrepreneurship.

Through this entrepreneurship program, students will learn how to be an entrepreneur, generate business/product ideas, conduct market research, consider legal and financial issues, and write their own business plan. 

Learn More

Looking for more entrepreneurship teaching resources? We suggest these resources: 

• Checking out this in-depth blog post all about our Contemporary Entrepreneurship Program 
• Watching our webinar, “Best Practices for Integrating Entrepreneurship Into CTE Courses” 
• And of course, don’t forget to download these three free entrepreneurship lessons.