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Return to Election Day: Classroom activities

Return to Presidential election: Teachable moment

What are the important issues?

 

Subjects

Language Arts
Statistics
Civics
Current Events
Government

Grades

3-5
6-8
9-12

Brief description

Students determine the most important issue of the current campaign.

Objectives

Students follow a multi-step voting process to determine the most important issue(s) of the current campaign. They document the final vote on five important issues by graphing the results.

Keywords

vote, election, issue, graph

Materials needed

graph paper, colored pencils

Lesson plan

Help students brainstorm a list of important issues the next president will face. That list of issues might include some of the following:

  • The economy
  • Health care
  • Foreign policy
  • Immigration
  • Same-sex marriage
  • Abortion
  • The environment
  • Social security/Medicare
  • Education
  • Homeland security (terrorism)

Then ask them to vote to narrow those issues to a list of the five most important ones. (Each student can vote for three issues.) Then hold another vote. Have each student vote for the single issue that he or she feels is the most important issue. Then invite each student to creates a graph to represent that final vote.

Election issues web resources

HuffPo Election 2012
NBC Learn - Decision 2016
Destination 2012

Assessment

Evaluate students' graphs.

Lesson plan source

Education World

Submitted by

Gary Hopkins

 

Last updated 2/28/2016