Election Season!

I like to use this forum to share a few of my favorite things. This morning, I was reminded that one of my favorite things is School Library Journal. While the title might sound old school, the publication itself is genius. It is where you will find nuggets of information about education trends, tech tools, and of course great blogs, books, DVDs, websites, and apps. This month's issue has a useful article about strong election resources. 

Looking for a FUN (let me emphasize FUN) way for your students to relate to and understand the complexities of a presidential election? If so, then iCivics.org is a winner. Students can play Win the White House and to ensure it is age appropriate, there is a different game for elementary, middle and high school students. It's one of those websites that students explore but don't realize that they are learning at the same time. 

Math teachers will find this next resource to be a great way to make cross curricular connections. The website called FiveThirtyEight  is filled with fun infographics with up to the minute updates about election predictions. School Library Journal suggests using this to have students create a current events math mash-up. Making this an activity in which no words are spoken aloud and students can only communicate through their visual creations would add an interesting dimension to this activity. 

An extremely powerful resource is LivingRoomCandidate.org. Going back to 1952, students can view commercials and videos highlighting the candidates various campaigns as well as their opponents. It makes for an awesome compare and contrast activity and a great way to analyze how these ads may or may not have impacted the outcomes. 

Finally, 270towin.com is an interactive electoral college map. Students can click on the different states and make their own election predictions. They can then share their own forecast too. 

There are a lot of options to teach students about the power of exercising one's right to vote. Integrating the election into your curriculum doesn't have to be controversial. Using some of these resources in creative ways can make for powerful and school appropriate learning opportunities.