Politics and government in our daily life

Educator  provides at least four ‘hot topic’ issues : federal, provincial, municipal and international (e.g.: waste management, migration flows,  climate change, overpopulation, biodiversity loss, pollution, etc.)

Students respond to the issues on the worksheet provided. (5 minutes)

Teacher sets up 4 corners of the room for strongly agree, agree, disagree, and strongly disagree. (approx 5-8 minutes per group)

Taking one issue at a time, teacher asks students to move to the corner of the room that corresponds to their answer. Once there, students record on their worksheet, how many people have a similar view to theirs.

In the ‘corner group’, students discuss their common position on the issue, and must come up with 3 to 5 reasons to support their opinion. Students appoint one group member to report back to the class with their reasons. A student may not be the reporter more than one time and the reporter is allowed 1 minute to state their position.

Option: After moving to the corner group and hearing the reasons, students in the group may choose to ‘cross the floor’ to another group.

After all the groups have reported their positions on the issues, the students move back to their original seats and the teacher leads a discussion on the work of government and the impact of government in daily lives, based on the premise that having a position on an issue makes each one of us ‘political’ at some level.

Teacher provides copies of recent newspapers/articles and/or allows the students to use computers to access internet news sites. Students report back in a teacher led brainstorming session. Teacher writes issues on the board.

Students choose one issue and based on their position on the issue, choose a method of response – such as:

• create a poster to highlight their position on the issue
• develop a power point presentation on the issue

Students present their posters/ ppts in the rest of the school community