Follow the election... Visually!

I believe this teaching tool gives students a visual to the electoral college process. By using this visual and interactive tool students can gain a deeper understanding of terms such as battleground states and connect the knowledge they are acquiring to current news events or the political climate in the country. I believe that the tool's interactive functions can help students not only be engaged in a Civics classroom but can also be used in other content areas where data analysis, statistics, and creating predictions are activities used to help facilitate student learning.

Its a great tool to show how the Electoral College works. You see the "light bulb" go off when you give M&M's (If M&M's wins) and they respond by saying "But I voted for skittles?" When you then tell them but "The Electoral College" declared M&M's the winner. At that point they truly understand how the Presidential Election works.

This website was a bit confusing for 6th graders and I had to break down the information a little bit more than I thought I would have to with the website. However, the website was extremely beneficial for explaining why winning states and what states are so important. My favorite part of the website is the maps of past elections. Students were able to look at maps and help apply information from the current map to predict the outcome of the 2016 election. The students were not thoroughly impressed with the website but I do believe that it help aid them in learning the electoral college process.