Growing Voters 2008

About this Project

• In 2004, thousands of teachers in all 50 states used these materials with nearly 19,000 site visitors in the month before the election.
• Why? The underlying motivation for the project is that students need to be motivated early to participate in the American electoral system and that learning socialization through school lessons can significantly build this. Literally growing voters through engaging activities during the school years may contribute to an antidote to the persistent low voter turn-out rate in the US. Technology tools help students to communicate, to express themselves and their understanding of the material to others. The tools enable excellent vehicles to engage and motivate student interest in these projects, including reporting, debating, giving presentations, exchanging and comparing interview results, electronically sharing scrapbooks, and voting in a mock national election.
• This curriculum project created a free web-based list of internet links that anyone can use. This hotlist of websites was vetted in part by Lesley-trained graduate students, most of them experienced teachers. With this pre-selected set of tools, teachers may be empowered themselves, and not have to face research over the entire internet. And for their students, teachers may feel more comfortable allowing them to explore these sites, knowing they have been screened by a reliable source.

Contributors:

Contributors to Growing Voters include a number of graduate students/teachers who participated through the course Technology and Social Studies at Lesley University The Project creator is Lesley University Professor Jo-Anne Hart (hart@mail.lesley.edu)