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# Social, economic, and political pluralism.

Just as the candidates have learned to use novel technology tools to reach young people during this year's presidential campaign, teachers like Mr. Sherif are turning to electronic resources to capture students' interest in the election. At the same time, they want to help students decipher the barrage of related images and information and to engage them in lessons about the democratic process today and throughout American history. "The technology is fun and helpful, but it's also a tool you can use to get a better understanding of what the political and historical issues are," said Mr. Sherif, who teaches history and science at the Science Leadership Academy, a public high school in Philadelphia.

The issue of race has been intertwined with the history of the United States since its inception. It has brought out the nation's best and its worst - from the courage of the civil rights workers to the murderous terrorism of the Ku Klux Klan. Barack Obama's meteoric rise already warrants a chapter of its own, and his mixed-race heritage has already played a pivotal role in this year's election. It helped the Illinois senator win key primaries in Southern states like South Carolina. But it also cost him some white support in some struggling industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, according to polls.

Another great lesson plan from the Dirksen Congressional Center's Congress in the Classroom workshop. Designed for students in grades 8-12.

During The Dirksen Congressional Center's annual Congress in the Classroom® workshop participants are asked to introduce the lesson plans, resources, and techniques that have proven successful in teaching about Congress in their classrooms.A 2008 participant, Jan Loyd, Cabot Junior High South, Cabot, AR, presented a lesson entitled, "Elect Me! Creating a Campaign Platform and Advertisement." Students will be a candidate for an election as a United States Representative or Senator in the upcoming election. They will need to decide which party fits their political views best. Next, they will plan and present a 3-5 minute campaign commercial about them as a candidate, their platform, and why the voters should vote for them.

Free!

Animated Science, Health, Technology, Math, Social Studies and English movies, comic strips, activity pages and school homework help for kids.

The number of voters under 30 in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections remained stagnant at just 17 percent. Teens become apathetic because politicians are unresponsive, politicians become indifferent to teens because they are apathetic and don't vote.
The way to break this cycle is to make teens feel like they have a voice that politicians will listen to. Politicians have been reaching out to youth by holding events on social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook. CNN even held the YouTube debates, allowing users to submit questions directly to candidates. Making politicians answerable to young people forces their interests to be considered.\n\n

eLECTIONS is a nonpartisan election simulation game developed by Cable in the Classroom, in partnership with CNN, C-SPAN and The History Channel, and available, free, online. Refreshed and updated for 2008, it takes advantage of broadband technology - with its capacity to deliver video, audio, excellent interactivity, design and content - to support active, meaningful and memorable learning.

Google U.S. Government Search offers a single location for searching across U.S. government information, and for keeping up to date on government news. You can choose to search for content located on either U.S. federal, state and local government websites or the entire Web -- from the same search box.

Google continues to add services--this is one stop shopping for searches related to U.S. Government. Could be really valuable for compiling data for student research. You can make it your homepage and personalize it by adding other content feeds to the page. You can have separate personalized content on both your Google U.S. Government Search and Google.com homepages.

Great compilation of lessons and resources for elections (all grade levels). The resources continue to grow and you can contribute your own lessons to this site.

Entire collection of lesson plans and teacher resources for elections, government, voting, constitution, electoral college, teen voting and civic engagement, etc. from HotChalk.com

Inaugural Parade interactive

Great videos of past inaugural addresses and comments on Washington and Adams inaugural addresses. Nice to have them all in one spot.