Sec: Presidential Election Projects

["Kathleen O'Brien" <obrien@NECA.COM>]

One of our American Citizenship (Civics) teachers is looking for new
research project ideas dealing with Presidential elections.

This is a synopsis of one of her past projects:

For the election of '92, each student was assigned a state outside of the
Northeast.  Each student was to discover the main local campaign issues of
that state by using periodical indexes (Facts on File, NewsBank, Readers'
Guide, EBSCO).

Then the students had to compare the local issues to the three major
candidates' platforms.  Based upon these facts and knowledge of past party
voting within the state, the students were to predict the popular vote
winner of that state in the national election.

After the election, the students were asked to explain the results within
their states.

This project was very time-consuming, but worked quite well with college
prep students.  She's looking for exciting ideas that could be used with
students of lower ability.

Any ideas would be appreciated.  I'll post a hit with responses received.

Kathleen O'Brien  <obrien@neca.com>
Killingly High Library, Danielson, CT