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Teachers' Edition: Grades 3-6 (Lesson Plans)
May 30, 2012

Electing the President: Voter Apathy

Download this lesson plan as a Word document

Key Concepts: participatory democracy; electoral politics

Duration: two (2) double-blocks (middle and high school), four (4) class periods (elementary school)

Goal: Students will understand the relationship between electoral engagement and political theory.

Objective: Students will learn how the form and function of representative government determines the degree voter apathy in a democratic system.

Essential Question: Does voter apathy decrease if a parliamentary (proportional) system of government replaces a congressional (winner-take-all) system?

Common Core Standards Met: CCR English Language Arts Standards 7-10

21st-Century Skills Employed: Civic Literacy

Procedures

Session One:

  • Introduce topic and question, then direct students to read the following online articles PBS NewsHour: Is The System Broken? (elementary/middle school); International Business Times: Why is There so Much Voter Apathy in U.S. Elections? (advanced middle school/high school) and discuss the following table of voter turnout from 1960 to 2010: National Voter Turnout in Federal Elections: 1960–2010.
  • Lecture: explain the difference between proportional (e.g., Europe) and winner-take-all (e.g., United States) electoral system.
  • Break the students into pairs. Have one student in each pair list the characteristics of a proportional system and have the other do the same for a winner-take-all system.
  • Have each pair then combine their separate lists into one table that places similar and/or opposing characteristics next to one another.

    • Grade Scale: 5 (A), 4 (B), 3 (C), 2 (D), 1 (F)

     

    Materials/Resources Required

    Non-tech: paper/graph paper, pens and/or pencils; computer access to Internet and Google suite (Google docs)

    Glossary

    proportional representation: representation based on the proportion of the vote won by a given political party

    parliament: legislative assembly based on proportional representation

    multiparty democracy: democratic system in which multiple parties participate and share representative power

    two-party democracy: democratic system in which multiple parties may participate but only two share representative power

    Links

    Douglas J. Amy: How Proportional Representation Elections Work