Election 2000: Classroom Activities

Republicans are meeting in Philadelphia this week to nominate their candidate for the presidency. Education World recognizes that event with the first in a series of lesson plan stories full of ideas for teaching about the upcoming elections and the election process! Included: Lessons for teaching about the Electoral College and the importance of voting, plus a unique approach to staging a classroom debate about election issues!

Lesson Plans Too! Throughout this campaign season, Education World will bring you election-related lesson plans --ten at a time! The lessons will help teachers bring alive in classrooms the upcoming elections and the election process. Watch for additional lesson plans in the weeks ahead. (The next batch is due to coincide with the Democratic National Convention in a few weeks!) Then, in September, we will present an Election 2000 WebQuest that will involve students in preparing weekly press conferences to update their peers on the candidates and the issues!

This week (July 31 through August 3, 2000), the city of Philadelphia hosts the Republican National Convention. Although the party has already decided on the nominee, there should still be plenty to get excited about. Delegates will debate hot issues, George W. Bush will detail his education plans, and the nation will get a good glimpse of Dick Cheney, Bush's running mate. People are also eager to hear what speakers such as Elizabeth Dole, Colin Powell, and John McCain will say. Many wonder what role candidate Alan Keyes will play in the convention.

Perhaps most important of all, though, the convention offers a unique opportunity for students to learn about the political process and to witness the wheels of democracy in motion.

Sad to say, many of the network news organizations have cut back their TV coverage of the convention from that of previous years. Convention coverage does not draw the ratings, network officials say. The lack of gavel-to-gavel coverage probably does not disturb too many people. But for students of previous generations, complete network TV coverage was how we learned about the political process. Without such coverage, will today's students be as politically aware as previous generations of students?

NETWORK COVERAGE REPLACED BY NET COVERAGE

Computer-savvy students can still follow convention activities --thanks to the Internet! Many online news sites will provide in-depth coverage. Among the potential classroom resources are USA Today's coverage of Campaign 2000, the CNN/AllPolitics coverage of Election 2000, and the Washington Post's On Politics Web page.

Another source for nonpartisan information is Web White & Blue 2000, a project of the nonprofit Markle Foundation designed to "highlight the ways in which the Internet can expand and enhance citizen participation in our nation's democratic process." Web White & Blue 2000 has created a network comprising the largest Internet traffic centers --including ABCNews.com, FoxNews.com, MSNBC.com, npr.org (National Public Radio online), NYTimes.com, and a dozen others --that have come together in order to provide voters with a comprehensive view of the best online political information resources.

The Republican Party's www.gopconvention.com 2000 Republican National Convention Web site promises to be an active --though partisan --place during the convention too. Click on the On the Convention Floor link in the left navigation bar of the site's main page to find resources with classroom potential. There, you'll find an explanation of why conventions are held and what delegates do, a time line showing locations of previous Republican conventions (perfect for mapping and graphing activities), and a look back at five other Republican conventions, starting in 1856, that have been held in Philadelphia.

Those are just a handful of the useful online resources!

Following are a list of the ten lessons we provide today. Click on the lesson headline below to access a complete teaching resource! (Notations in parentheses indicate approximate grade levels for each activity.)

Election Scavenger Hunt Students hunt through newspapers and other news sources for election-related "treasures." (K-12)

The Electoral College When has the Electoral College been a deciding factor in an election? (3-12)

Getting Out the Vote: An Election Day Classroom Experiment An experiment drives home to students the importance of voting! (3-12)

Election Results Map Students create color-keyed maps showing election night returns. (K-12)

Presidents at Inauguration Graph: How Old Were They? Students graph the presidents' ages at inauguration. Who was the youngest president? the oldest? (K-8)

If I Were President Students think critically about issues in the current election campaign. (K-12)

Campaign Ad Critique Students learn a lesson in media literacy! (6-12)

Take a Stand! Students take a unique approach to a classroom discussion/debate of the election process! (3-12)

What Are the Important Issues? Students determine the most important issue of the current campaign. (3-12)

Terms of Office! Students create a classroom dictionary of election terms. (3-12)

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07/31/2000