Federal Political Party Webquest: Who Has Your Vote?

Main Page

Introduction

Task

Process

Evaluation

Conclusion

Teacher Page

Introduction

This webquest was developed out of my experiences at the Teachers' Institute on Parliamentary Democracy in Ottawa and Victoria. I came away from these outstanding profession development opportunities with a strong desire to create lessons that would get my students excited when learning about federal government sytem. This webquest is one of the results of my efforts.

In this webquest, students will examine their own political beliefs, create groups and research federal political parties. They will create a music video that demonstrates their political beliefs.

Learners

The lesson is anchored in Civics 11.

In order to complete the music video portion of this lesson, the students will have to be able to work with computer software such as powerpoint. If they are comfortable with other mulitimedia software such as Adobe Premier of Moviemaker, then they can use it.

Curriculum Standards

apply critical thinking skills including comparing, questioning, summarizing, drawing conclusions, and defending a position
demonstrate effective research skills including accessing information, assessing information, collecting data, organizing information, presenting information
demonstrate effective written and graphic communication skills, individually and collaboratively
describe the key features of prominent 20th and 21st century political and economic ideologies including communism, conservatisim, fascism, liberalism, and socialism
assess the role of beliefs and values in civic decision making
analyse key provisions of the Canadian social safety net and their impact on Canadian society

Process

Examine Your Own Political Beliefs (do this on your own):

1. To begin, you need to get a sense of some of the big political issues facing Canada. It's time to read up on the issues.

2. After reading up on the issues, it's time to record your own political beliefs on a chart. On the chart, you must write down at least two opinions that you have about each issue. After you write down your opinions, rate the issues in order of importance to you. (This means that the issue that you rank as #1 is the one that you care about most.

3. Find classmates with similar political beliefs and form a group. You are now a political party.

Research Federal Political Parties (do this as a group)

4. Have a discussion with your group about your political beliefs. Every person in the group needs to have a chance to state their top 5 issues.

5. After everyone in your group has had a chance to speak, it is time to make your first group decision. As a group, choose your 3 most important issues.

6. Now it is time for your group to research the 15 federal political parties. You are trying to find out how the parties feel about your top 3 issues. You want to know which party matches the matches the beliefs of your party the best. Divide up the work so that each group member only needs to look at a few parties. Record your findings on a chart.

7. Get back into your group and share your research information with the rest of your group. Complete your chart by recording the information that your other group members gathered.

8. Now that your chart is finished, your group needs to decide which federal political party matches the beliefs of your group most closely.

Create Music Video (do this as a group)

9. It is time to create an amazing music video that expresses the political beliefs of your party. Begin by deciding on the beliefs that you want to express in the video. Next, your group needs to create a storyboard (the rough story of what is going to happen) for the video. Decide on what type of show you want to create (powerpoint, video in which you act, a collection of video clips and photos from internet etc.) Create your storyboard by sketching out what happens in each scene of your movie. You can do this on paper, or you can use an on-line tool called Storyboard.

All shows must follow these rules:

(a) the show must be created with some type of mutimedia software (powerpoint, adobe premier, moviemaker etc.)

(b) the show must be set to music that emphasizes the message of the show

(d) the show must contain at least five statistics

(e) the show must end by stating which federal political party has your vote.

10. Now that you have completed the storyboard, it is time to assign jobs to each group member so that you can actually create the music video. You need someone to be the researcher (person who goes on-line and finds pictures, video clips, and statistics). You need someone to turn the storyboard into a detailed plan (this might look like a script). You need a technical person who actually works with the software to create the show. You might need a videographer (if you choose to use a camcorder).

11. When you finish the show, upload it to youtube.com and then send the link to the following address: shawna@mapleleafpro.net. When you do this, a link will be created from your youtude video to this site.

12. Watch the other music videos that are posted on the site and then cast your vote.

Resources

You will need access to a computer lab so that students can complete internet research on the federal political parties. The computer will also need to be loaded with a multimedia software such as powerpoint.

After the students finish their powerpoints, you need to put them onto youtube. To do this, you will need a program that changes the powerpoint show into an AVI show so that it can be seen on youtube. If you don't have a program to change the powerpoint file to AVI, you can download one for a 30 day free trial. If you don't have a youtube account, you will need to set one up.

Example of Political Beliefs Chart

Example of Federal Party Comparison Chart

Evaluation

In this webquest, the students will be graded on the following areas: Personal Beliefs Chart, Federal Party Comparison Chart, Self-Evaluation of Work in Group, Music Video. Click here to view rubrics.

Conclusion

This webquest helps student to develop their own political beliefs. Reseaching political parties has a lot more meaning for students when they compare the beliefs of each party to the ones that they hold. The video show is a creative way to get the students to think about political beliefs even more deeply. Each step of the webquest brings to student further down the road to being an active citizen.