Just because the presidential election is two years away, that doesn’t mean you have to wait around to get your students interested in presidential politics is the web-based game, eLections. Free to play and requiring only an internet connection, eLections takes you step by step through the presidential election process, from declaring candidacy to getting your party’s nomination to landing the most difficult job there is.
Should animals have the same rights as people? Should the English-speaking world adopt American English? There are some topics on which everyone has an opinion. Offering a controversial debate question is a great way to energize your students and open their minds to multiple points of view.
Whether you want to have an impromptu class discussion or explore an issue in more depth, a pair of online resources can serve as starting points. Opposing Views is a veritable marketplace for all things debatable and The Economist is a news magazine with a debate section on its site. Both provide conflicting opinions from verified experts in a point-counterpoint format.
BY BILL FERRIS
Everyone knows nuclear weapons are deadly. Ground Zero makes the destruction hit home, semi-literally.
This Google Maps mashup lets you see what would happen to your hometown (or another location of your choosing) if it was hit by various nuclear weapons. Pick your poison, which ranges from Fat Man and Little Boy to the Soviet Tsar Bomba, which caused the largest explosion ever. You can even look at the impact of the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs, proving that man is still no match for nature. (more…)
Let’s face it, unhealthy food options and a general lack of nutritional awareness have made childhood obesity a big issue in this country. In an effort to tackle the problem head-on, First Lady Michelle Obama has launched the aptly named Let’s Move. Part informational and part networking building, the site offers a wealth of nutrition and health information while trying to lay the foundation for a network of health-conscious citizens to work together to fight childhood obesity.
Like most children going through middle school and high school, I on occasion was shown one of those grainy black-and-white film on the day we had a sub. You know the ones, made during the good old days when the narrators talked in monotone, the music consisted of dramatic orchestra swells, and everyone wore suits or long dresses. Well, the good old days are back in full force with the government-funded FedFlix, an extensive archive of government-funded films made from back in the 1940s to the modern day.
Teaching students how our government works can be a dull subject — two houses, a president, a judicial branch, checks and balances, separation of church and state, we all had the same cookie-cutter run down. But how can we dig deeper than just the surface lessons about the folks we send to Washington D.C.? Well, the Library of Congress has created THOMAS, an online resource about the real goings-on of our government, named after out third president, which has an immense amount of information right down to the bills that were passed this week.
Growing up during the tail end of the Cold War, I heard the phrase “Be happy you don’t live in the U.S.S.R because…” many times in relation to things I felt were unfair. As a child you don’t really have an appreciation for the ways legal systems and governments work outside of the United States. Until I got to middle school I didn’t know what a parliament was outside of a brand of cigarettes.
To get a better sense of how the rest of the world works, the website JuriGlobe is an excellent resource you can point students to or reference yourself when they ask those gotcha questions in class like “Is Turkmenistan’s legal system based on a Common Law or Civilist model?”
Need some global statistics to emphasize a point you’re trying to make in an ecology or civics lesson plan? Trying to drive home the point in a health-related lesson about the spread of disease or the scope of our ever-growing obesity epidemic? Then check out Worldometers, a real-time online ticker that tracks statistics ranging from food consumption, to energy use, to how much people spend on video games.
BY BILL FERRIS
Given the polarized public opinion on the direction of American government, a game named Argument Wars seems like the perfect classroom activity to learn about the judicial branch of government. In this classroom game from Our Courts, students will argue both sides in several famous Supreme Court cases. According to the Our Courts website:
“In Argument Wars, you debate historical Supreme Court cases by advancing arguments and backing them up with supports. Play New Jersey v. T.L.O., Brown v. Board of Education, or Gideon v. Wainwright today! Coming soon: Texas v. Johnson, Miranda v. Arizona and more!”
BY BILL FERRIS
The Lincoln Log has nothing to do with those fun wooden playsets you can build houses with. Instead, it’s “A daily chronology of the life of Abraham Lincoln.” Seeing as how Lincoln lived long before people could record the daily minutiae of their lives in blogs, the staff of the Papers of Abraham Lincoln combed through a lot of historical documents in order to find out what Honest Abe was up to on any particular day. In addition to a keyword search, you can search by date, year, or see what happened today in Lincoln’s life.
BY BILL FERRIS
I’ve only been to Washington, D.C. once in my life. It was a great trip, and I loved seeing so much American history up-close. The spot that made the greatest impression on me was the Lincoln Memorial, not only because of Lincoln’s legacy, but also because of how impressive the monument itself is. It’s hard to truly appreciate the monument without seeing it and its gigantic statue in person. The Lincoln Memorial Interactive website, however, comes close.
BY BILL FERRIS
Try your hand at balancing a state budget with the Colorado Backseat Budgeter, an online application from the Bighorn Leadership Development Program at Colorado State University. The Backseat Budgeter lets you decide how much to spend on health care, roads, education, social services and so forth, while raising or lowering tax rates to make up for budget shortfalls. In keeping with these hard economic times, the Backseat Budgeter starts you approximately $800 million in the hole.
BY BILL FERRIS
For this month’s random roundup, we’ve selected the Library of Congress, our nation’s storehouse of pretty much everything worth knowing. As you’d expect, a lot of great resources for teachers have been derived from the Library. See your tax dollars at work by reading the articles linked after the jump.
If the closest your students have been to the White House is Google Maps, consider taking a virtual field trip via The White House Museum. You can look at floor plans, read detailed descriptions of the various floors and rooms, discover what goes on in each section of the White House, and learn about the history of the executive mansion. The tour covers everything from 3D models of the Oval Office to the storied history of the White House bowling alley.
Nostradamus once prophesied: “Three great leaders will become enemies / Earthquakes and disaster falling from the heavens.” Pretty wild stuff, am I right? As resident numerologist and astrology blogger for Instructify, I can agree with Nostradamus on the earthquakes and whatnot — but great leaders becoming enemies? That’s a bit too far-fetched, especially when the Youth Leadership Initiative is there to teach future leaders how to play nice.
The Youth Leadership Initiative is a great resource for your civics classroom. First of all, you’ll gain access to the YLI’s teacher-developed lesson plans when you visit their site. You’ll probably have to do some custom tailoring for your own class, but it’s a nice head start that lets you work on planning. Another distinct feature is the e-Congress program, where students are engaged by simulations in the entire lawmaking process.
YLI also features a pretty robust mock-election simulation tailored right down to your own local legislative district. You guessed it: good ole’ reliable cyber ballots! We missed the boat on last year’s big election, but I’m hoping that there will be mock elections during non-election years. I would enjoy the comic possibilities in imagining my own megalomaniacal simulated candidates, so it would be cool if the creative team at YLI hits me up for some notes.
The Youth Leadership Initiative is a non-partisan unit of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, so you can rest assured that no particular agenda is being promoted. Seriously, not even the far-reaching “let’s all bow before General Zod” lobbyists have their claws in this program (although, if you’re interested, I have a newsletter you might want to read). The other hook is that this is an entirely non-profit program, which allows your class to participate at no cost. With all these positives, you might want to form your own exploratory committee to find out more about the Youth Leadership Initiative. -NICK YINGLING
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