. >> reporter: sitting in on the class this day, christina climaco. she's not an educator, she's an executive at great west insurance, one of the country's larger financial services companies. when the legislature passed the mandate, it didn't provide any additional money for it. in fact, colorado has been forced to make massive cuts in the education budget. great-west decided to step in and help. climaco runs the company's financial literacy program, which last fall awarded 25 $5,000 grants to individual teachers all over the state. >> we're already seeing that these grants are having a huge and tremendous impact on student knowledge and its really empowering teachers to teach personal finance in the classroom. >> reporter: climaco says the grant applications proposed many different approaches. >> they set up the classroom, there were bakeries and coffee shops and hair salons. and you have to go to those different shops and give them fake money, and they're starting to learn that i actually have to give something to get something back in return. so w