Videos - From Campaign to President

In case you haven't heard, this year the United States is choosing a President. The process started a while ago and we still have almost eight more months of hollow promises to hear campaign activities to go before the election. I've been bookmarking videos related to the election process for a while, here they are. I hope this help you help your students understand the process of choosing a President of the United States.

Let's start with an explanation of how candidates raise campaign funds.


Now that we've raised money, let's spend it.


And why do we have to spend it so early? Because of the primary and caucus season. Here's an explanation of those.


Let's see who helps candidates in those early elections and caucuses.


It's pretty much a given that an incumbent first term President will receive his party's nomination. That's an advantage. There are some disadvantages to being the incumbent. Here's a look at the advantages and disadvantages of campaigning for re-election.


Now that we're down to just two viable candidates remaining, let's pick a victor through the Electoral College. Here's one explanation and here's another.

Road to the White House Game, Maps, and Scholastic News

Scholastic's Election 2012 is a nice set of resources through which elementary and middle school students can learn about various aspects of the 2012 Presidential Election. Election 2012 prominently features student-friendly articles about the Republican primaries and caucuses. Before you have your students read those articles you might want to have them take advantage of some of the other resources provided by Scholastic's Election 2012.

Scholastic's Election 2012 Q&A page offers short answers to common questions like, "what is a primary?" and "what is Super Tuesday?" After going over those questions and answers with your students they can test their recall of that information by playing the On the Road to the White House Game which is based on the Election 2012 Q&A.

Applications for Education
Scholastic's Election 2012 could be a good way for elementary school and middle school students to follow the process of choosing a new U.S. President. The section about the candidates themselves is a little thin, but that could be the jumping-off point for students to do some research about the candidates.

Here are some resources for teaching about the 2012 election that are appropriate for middle school and high school use:
How Candidates Raise and Spend Money
Election Lesson Plans from C-SPAN
Primary Elections and Gerrymandering Explained

H/T to Michelle Krill for the Scholastic Election 2012 link.

Videos - How Candidates Raise and Spend Money

The amount of money that Presidential candidates spend on their campaigns is just mind boggling to me. Chances are good that it's mind boggling to your students too. CNN's Explain It To Me series has a couple of videos explaining how candidates raise money and what they spend that money on.

Here is How Candidates Raise Money.

Here is Campaign Spending. One of the statistics in this video that might help your students understand how much money is spent on campaigns is that Kobe Bryant would have to play for 29 years to earn as much money as President Obama spent in 2008.


On a much lighter note, and use your discretion before using this in your classroom, the Colbert Super Pac Coordination Resolution With Jon Stewart actually does include some good explanation of a couple of finer points about political super pacs.

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

Newt Gingrich and Your Next Science Lesson

Don't worry, this is not a political editorial. 

By now you've probably heard Republican Presidential Candidate Newt Gingrich's comments last week that by the end of his second term in office (provided he's elected and re-elected) there will be an American base on the moon. If you didn't hear Newt's comments last week, The Atlantic has a piece on it right now.

Newt Gingrich's comments and the aforementioned article in The Atlantic made me think about NASA's role-playing game Moonbase Alpha. Moonbase Alpha is an online game developed by NASA to be played on the Steam online gaming platform. Moonbase Alpha a simulation game in which players assume the role of an astronaut working to repair equipment in order to restore oxygen delivery to a settlement on the moon. The game can be played by up to six players at a time who communicate using voice over communication.

See the trailer for Moonbase Alpha in the video below.


Applications for Education
Put a classroom discussion of Newt Gingrich's comments together with Moonbase Alpha and you might have a nice little lesson covering both Civics and Space Science.