Kids Voting Ohio/Southwestern will supply to each participating teacher the following:

• The Kids Voting USA Core Curriculum, grade level specific*
• The Kids Voting Ohio State Teacher's Handbook*
• The Kids Voting Local Elections Supplemental Curriculum
• The Kids Voting Ohio/Southwestern Local Elections Teacher's Handbook
• Kids Voting Ohio/Southwestern Poster
• Kids Voting event awareness mailings

*If you have already received these items in 1996 you will not need to receive them in 1997.

Kids Voting Ohio/Southwestern will supply to each participating school the following:

• One overhead and one master copy of the Kids Voting ballot (mid-October)
• An invitation to the September 24, National Kids Voting Day kick off event
• A print-out of the polls that will be open as Kids Voting polling places election day (October)

Commitment: How many lessons? How much time? When?

The Kids Voting curriculum and handbook offer teachers flexibility in implementation:

• Elementary Teachers select from 10 short activity based lessons that prepare children for participation in the election.
• Middle Level Teachers select from a menu of choices, including 7 full-class lessons, applicable across disciplines, and plenty of independent student projects.
• High School Teachers can choose from an assortment of 22, 45 minute core activities. Activities that are not used prior to the election can be utilized (across disciplines) throughout the remainder of the school year.

A videotape of the 1997 Kids Voting Teacher Training can be made available to your school by calling the Kids Voting Ohio/Southwestern office. Among other topics, the training details ways in which the Kids Voting curriculum relates to the proficiency tests, and techniques to better integrate it across disciplines.

Suggestions for Interdisciplinary Instruction
Proficiency Test Correlation

Because electoral politics is usually considered part of the social studies curriculum, you will not find social studies listed below. The purpose of these pages is to provide suggestions for infusing the Kids Voting concepts into other areas of the curriculum. These are only basic ideas, with infinite room for expansions and additions.

Mathematics

One of the simplest ways to incorporate Kids Voting concepts into mathematics is by studying and practicing methods for reporting election results. Discuss how the vote count can be expressed in many different fashions: raw numbers, percentages, fractions, and graphs. Give the students something to vote on, or use actual election results (available at http://www.state.oh.us/sos/), and let them manipulate the numbers.

Students can learn about statistical information by acting as campaign managers. Through demographics, either taken from classroom polling or actual county/city-wide statistics, students can make decisions as to where they would appropriate their candidate's campaign dollars and time. Encourage them to present and explain their campaign plan to the class.

Science

Discuss local environmental issues that affect your students. Request that they each choose one environmental issue they would like to see on the ballot. Ask them to research, write, and present a brief speech lobbying their fellow classmates to consider their view on the chosen issue.

Art

Fliers, buttons, billboards and yard signs are integral parts of nearly every campaign. Ask students to pay close attention to all of the different campaign paraphernalia that they see. Discuss the importance of different design attributes: contrasting colors may be used to make the sign "pop" visually, certain objects may be laid out in a visually more/less prominent way, color may be altered to evoke different responses, etc. Have students design, and share with the class, their own campaign paraphernalia.

Language Arts

There are many natural crossovers between the Kids Voting concepts and the Language Arts class. Student can:

• write letters to the editor about issues or in support of a candidate.
• develop interview questions for candidates, and perform real or mock interviews.
• write public service announcements (PSAs) for radio (which can be used for school PA or radio systems).
• research candidate literature, with each student writing a summary of a candidate's platforms and job qualifications (make sure each of your area candidates are assigned to a student so that students can get the full picture of who they will be voting on) and presenting it to the class.

Computer Science

Two key ways that computers can be tied into the Kids Voting program is through mathematical analyzations and use of the world wide web. Students can use computers to create graphs and charts from election data (either from an actual election or classroom voting).

There are many sources on-line where students can get election-oriented information (see page 15 of your Kids Voting Ohio Teacher's Handbook for suggested web sites). Ask students to brainstorm for key search words that may elicit additional candidate, issue, or election information. Don't forget to check out the various Kids Voting web sites!