K-12 Government/Election Teaching Materials

Check out games and activities on the topic of your choice!

Watch this! It's truly terrifying! Share it w/friends and family. This is a must see. It puts all the facts together about the NSA "failure" to protect use from the 9/11 hijackers because of Bush leaders refusal to follow FISA laws. NSA Takeover Secret govt agency kept intel from FBI about 9/11 hijackers, for money & power to spy on all. The upshot is that these non-elected US govt agents were able to convince our Congress that they weren't to blame for keeping intel about 9/11 terrorists living in USA for over a year from FBI. Instead NSA chief convinced US Congress that the NSA could have prevented 9/11 if they had more money and power to spy on everyone in USA. Now they have it.

watch this; abuse of power

amazing story of her first years here in the United States, when Ayn Rand wrote in her notebooks and fashioned her first hero after a serial killer of the 1920's. Why was this information not available when I was wanting to learn more about her early life? Everyone who knew her and helped her rise to prominence didn't want to have this information leaking out to the general public.

Help Barack Obama craft his inauguration speech... MadLibs style!

Nice basic lesson plan for K-2 students to help them understand the concept of voting on a ballot and having a reason for voting the way they did.

Lesson plan for K-2 students from HotChalk lesson plans page. Uses 3 little pics and asks kids to vote on which version of the story they believe. Helps kids understand what happens when you vote on a ballot.

To test your knowledge of prominent people and major events in the news, we invite you to take our short quiz. Then see how you did in comparison with 1,003 randomly sampled adults asked the same questions in a recent national survey conducted by the Pew Research Center. For an analysis of the findings from the poll on the public's News IQ, read the full summary of findings.

A fascinating quiz that students could take (teachers too) that would provide some very engaging conversations about current events. You can compare your News IQ with the average scores of men and women; with college graduates as well as those who didn't attend college; with people who are your age as well as with younger and older Americans.

Here's a nice compilation of many teaching resources for elections, propaganda, democracy, civics, government, voting, and presidential resources.

An excellent compilation of teaching resources, lessons and projects for K-12.

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

I really like this web site which models web 2.0 communication inviting participation throughout the site on issues, stories, etc. while providing helpful information. Check it out. It also provides a link to a Presidential Transition Directory. The Transition Directory was developed to introduce Presidential nominees, appointees, and members of the President-elect's Transition Team to the operation of the Federal government and to the resources available to help them begin their service in the new Administration. Very helpful organizational chart and other information for students learning about government.

Up to date announcedments and information about Barack Obama. He invites people to share their inspiring stories from the campaign and election day. Every page invites people to provide feedback on his agenda for the presidency. Excellent model for web 2.0 and a tool for communication.

This should be a very informative debate. The video will be archived if you can't view it live. Looking forward to hearing an education focus for the Presidential election!

Join us for "Education and the Next President," a live debate from Teachers College, Columbia University, with Linda Darling-Hammond, education adviser to Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama, and Lisa Graham Keegan, education adviser to Presidential Republican nominee John McCain. The event is being exclusively Webcast by edweek.org with generous support from NASSP. A video archive of the event will be available Wed., Oct 22, at noon.

excellent example of using Wordle to analyze inaugural poems.

Excellent blog post with lesson example for a powerful use of using Wordle in an English classroom. Students explore words from several different inaugural poems to predict the themes and symbols developed in the poems. World is a great tool for exploring the ways that writers use words.

This looks like a great online project for the 2008 election for K-6 students. They vote for president and the data is available for them to use in many projects. Site includes resource links, indeas and books.

Info shared by Nancy Golubic, Project Coordinator, Boardman, Ohio. I've just posted my Election 2008 Online project. Four years ago, I ended up with almost 5,000 kids across the country voting. This year I hope to get more votes. Take a look. It says that registration opens on August 18th, but the registration link already works.

Looks like this starts August 18 recommended by Jen Wagner

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.

An excellent article about ways technology is being used to learn about the election and participate in the conversation.

Both major parties' historic tickets-a black man for president, a woman for vice president-as well as compelling economic and foreign-policy issues are converging with the campaigns' use of text-messaging, online networking, and nontraditional media venues to draw young people into the contest. Teachers have also seized on the opportunity to use the favored devices of today's students in teaching traditional civics lessons along with the 21st-century skills experts say people will need to thrive in the information age. "The idea is to teach kids as young as possible to be able to navigate this increasingly complicated media world by giving them some basic tools for analysis

links for a complete unit study on the upcoming 2008 presidential election. These PreK and K-10 links will lead you to articles, hands-on activities and other exercises that are compatible with the Montessori classified reading cards, grammar, creative writing, math, social studies and other extensive lesson plans

Just received an email announcement about these resources and they look great. Some of the links include sites and resources we have already shared in our group.

Excellent lesson plan for gr. 9-12 where students take on role of political analyst. Designed for 2004 election but could easily be modified for 2008. Another great lesson plan from HotChalk.

comprehensive lesson plan for gr. 9-12 including assessment, discussion questions, etc. Overview Students take on the role of a political analyst, forecasting the electoral vote count for the 2004 presidential election. In order to make a prediction, students are introduced to campaign issues, the Electoral College, the role of swing states, and the importance of political participation. The lesson plan includes a fun, interactive classroom competition where students make electoral predictions and compare with the actual results following the November 2nd voting deadline.

Meet Barack Obama courtesy of Scholastic.