GrowingVoters.org is a non-partisan learning initiative. These free virtual and classroom creative activities designed for all grades on voting and elections invite student voice and power to actively take part in the U.S. political system

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US Presidential Election Activities for Students

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Students working in groups design and produce campaign commercials for each candidate (or focus on a particular issue). Student-created projects can be in the form of print ads, TV commercials, or audio versions (radio-like podcasts or shared audio online). Ads can be viewed on a number of safe and reliable websites, like the independent or non-partisan sites. See the GrowingVoters.org tools list for resources. And feel free to post student works to GrowingVoter.org on social media.

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Produce Campaign Issue Ads

In this activity students have to plan and coordinate a press room that occurs as soon as a candidate debate concludes. It's where pundits and party officials tell reporters what the key points of the debate were. This is a place where "spin" on the messages is created. In this media literacy activity students simulate their own candidate messages and gain the tools to identify and analyze media “spin”: messages, interpretation, and manipulation. This Hack the Spin exercise can be easily paired with the GrowingVoters.org teams activity on preparing candidates for debates.

HACK the Spin! Press Room Simulation

The Presidential campaign is full of constant reports about public opinion towards the candidates and attitudes on the issues. These are mostly based on results of national polls conducted by a variety of sources for various purposes. In this activity students will delve behind the national statistics and see how data on public opinion is generated. By designing their own poll, students will see the importance of what questions are asked, how those questions are framed, what data is collected, and how it is analyzed. As students analyze and present their own data, they understand the wider role of public opinion in the Presidential election process.

Students Conduct Own Election Survey

Using real costs and campaign dynamics, students will think through the differences in messaging, pricing, and impact between ads placed online, on TV and radio, and in print (billboards, newspapers).
They'll create a spreadsheet using basic editing, formatting, formulas, and functions and relate data to political life. These are also skills relevant to the workplace.


Design Candidate Advertising Campaign: Students Design and Budget Advertising Campaign

 Design and Budget Candidate Advertising Campaign

Students will team up to prepare their party's candidate for the big debate. They will also prepare for media coverage. There is an optional second level activity to complement this debate (see Hack the Spin! GrowingVoters.org activity.)

Candidate Debate / Prepare for Press Spin (Part 2)

Candidate Debate Prep Teams

Apps like TikTok allow students to easily create and post short videos. Candidates themselves and their supporters have been posting such content which has been seen by millions.

For this exercise, students working on their own or in groups design their short form ad. Using a mobile app, they produce campaign commercials for each candidate (or focus on a particular issue). Student-created videos ads can be viewed beyond mobile phones – on a number of public websites, college course websites, shared through social media. Feel free to use the GrowingVoters.org Facebook page to share videos.

Produce Mobile Phone Campaign Ads College 2020

Produce Mobile Phone Campaign Ads 

Elections are inherently adversarial contests in that only one candidate will prevail. Governing, however, takes collaboration and the knitting together of goals and policies. The electoral process and the candidate campaigns can also afford valuable learning opportunities for finding common ground. With a grounding in listening techniques, students here play the role of the political parties and candidates to listen with respect in order to find out the areas they agree on.

Common-Ground-Respectful-Listening-Candidate-Debate-Activity 2020

Common Ground Respectful Listening Activity

College Supplies 1

College

The U.S. Electoral College can be a complex concept for students to understand. Most students are surprised to find that technically American voters do not directly elect their president. In this activity, students will be able to both learn and apply their understanding of the role and function of this element of our electoral system by creating infographics. These creative depictions will demonstrate knowledge as well as create student-produced materials which can be shared online.

This activity can be expanded or reduced to make it appropriate for a range of grades.

DIY Infographics: Students Depict Electoral College

A very effective way to learn material is to teach it to others. In this activity, students actively engage with content as they build their own teaching materials and present to a lower grade class. Instead of hearing passively about the significance of political parties in this country, here the students are asked to answer that question for themselves in preparation for explaining it to younger students. Older students will need to find out party platforms and candidate stances on issues so they can be informed presenters outside their classrooms.

Kid-to-Kid: Older grade presentations to younger grades

Students will create and use their own materials to learn about the voting process, explore the reasons that people should vote, and take part in a community drive to promote voting. Students will learn through direct hands-on experience why voting is important, and will become aware of why some citizens decide not to vote. When students distribute their pamphlets and speak to voters in their community, they are participating in the actual political process even before reaching voting age.

Create "Why Vote" Pamphlet (or fliers)

Create "Why Vote" Pamphlet (or digital fliers)

This is optional part two of the GrowingVoters.org activity Why Vote? Class Flier or Pamphlet. Here the student flier gets distributed - either virtually or in-person. Create a Civic Lemonade Stand.

Why Vote? Flier Goes Public (Civic Lemonade Stand)

Why Vote? Flier Goes Public 

Former Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill famously said that “all politics is local”. In this activity students have the chance to look very closely at the local vote for President. The free online data available shows election results over time and broken down into counties, which makes it possible for students to quickly investigate their own state in detail. These numbers also give students a solid basis of prediction for the Fall vote.

ALL POLITICS IS LOCAL: Know Your Counties and Predict the Vote

All Politics is Local: Know Your Counties and Predict the Vote

Pundits and news outlets analyze the Presidential debates by using excerpts. Consider what candidate expressions are captured, which excerpt from which answer, which quip or verbal shot at an opponent is carried in the news. Does it show one candidate struggling and the other looking commanding? Does the news replay an equal number of “gotcha’s”? In this activity, students will make those choices to deliberately construct their own different version of debate coverage.

Who Won the Debate? Students Cut-and-Paste Coverage

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Secondary

This activity is intended for younger students, Grades 1-3, although it could be adapted for upper level students. The focus of this lesson is on learning about how voters make their choices in the Presidential Election. In this lesson the students become interviewers and go out to the community (parents, grandparents, neighbors, teachers, principal, soccer coach, community spiritual leaders, etc.) to discover the most important election issues in their community. The questions could also include whom these adults are planning to vote for and why. Elementary students will learn the basic steps of choosing a president: how people decide whom to vote for, and what issues are most important in their communities. By reporting on the election themselves, students will also get to understand the process of how the campaign is reported in the news media and in polls because those are based on questioning eligible voters.

Kid Reporters in Action

Students create a Presidential Candidate trading card that they can trade or keep to teach others about the candidate’s history, political party, issues, supporters, and any other pertinent details.

Election Trading Cards:  Candidates, Parties, Issues, and Supporters

There is a White House press corps that occupies a full press room in the West Wing of the White House. In this activity, students role-play some of the 250 “White House correspondents” keeping a daily watch on the administration, relying heavily on their proximity to the president and his (or her) staff inside the walls of the historic building.

US Presidential Election Activities for Students

GrowingVoters.org provides free hands-on virtual and classroom activities across subjects.

Free Virtual & Classroom Activities

About GrowingVoters.org

Why Students?

"Growing Voters provides students with the opportunity to consider the stakes of a critical and historic election. The lessons are a great way to build critical thinking skills and exercise good habits of citizenship."