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DEMOCRACY 3 - ASSIGNMENT IN MIDDLE SCHOOL POLITICS AND ECONOMICS



Since 2007 when I first started teaching, I have sought to create opportunities to implement economic activities into a range of my classes. As such, I have managed to introduce economic thinking into business, accounting, careers, personal finance and even information technology.

However, I have always wanted to create a middle school subject based upon two of my biggest passions: economics and politics.


In mid 2016 I had the opportunity to propose a new middle school elective at the High School I teach at. The goal; to encourage students to become engaged in politics and economics.

Throughout 2017, I have had the opportunity to work with a graduate teacher in bringing my vision to reality. This process has been extremely rewarding and enjoyable.

As I designed the subject, I had in mind an end point, a task that I could use to determine whether my students had developed an awareness of the strong and unbreakable links between economics and politics. This end point is Positech Games' Democracy 3 -
This game has enabled me to let my students loose in a simulated democracy, a world where they can implement the policies and actions that we have discussed in class throughout the year.

Yesterday, I was finally able to allow the students to test out their theories and experiment in playing this game.

The results were fantastic, after a 45 overview of the game (it has a very steep learning curve!) I allowed the students to simulate the role of the Australian government, trying to balance the political decisions that they wished to make, against the economic constraints and their level of political capital.

For 45 minutes, the class were fully engaged in the activity, making decisions and discussing their progress with their peers.

Tomorrow I will test out the new assignment that I have written for them, and see if they are able to explain and justify their actions coherently.

I can't wait.

PS - Find out how the activity went with our subsequent blog post - Here


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