“They essentially learns what it looks like to start a company,” said Rick Harding, who leads the E4D—”Entrepreneur for a Day”—program for Hubbard County’s Regional Economic Development Commission, which hopes to expand the program to more area fifth-graders.

Mastin said about a third of her students told her they want to start their own business when they grow up. The class was split into groups of five, and each group came up with a specific product to design, build (from Play-Doh) and sell—all while handling the behind-the-scenes logistics of a small business.

Fifth-grade entrepreneur Jeana Taylor and Head of Marketing Tanisha Davis’ group designed “Jet Phones,” which have unlimited data, lightning-fast speeds, are water resistant and can recharge with the push of a button.

“If you lose your charger, you don’t have to worry about it,” Taylor said. “There’s a charger built into your phone.”

Xavier Duchaine is his group’s accountant, and was engrossed in his work at Memorial Hall designing and building Play-Doh strings for his group’s guitar project. Mastin said Duchaine lit up during the week-long entrepreneurship lesson. Learning from a second teacher in college classrooms is more educationally valuable, she added.

“It’s more real for them,” Mastin explained. “They’re creating their own businesses and having to solve a lot of problems today. That’s going to be huge when they’re the business world and they’re learning how to fix issues that are happening right now.”