|
Local Government and Public Services
Lesson Plan:
•This activity is designed to enhance children’s understanding of local government, city council, mayor and taxes.
•First, print out the slides 15 – 18. Two slides are identities that you will give to the students. The other two slides are fake money.
•Next explain to the children that they are no longer students at school, but rather citizens of a city. Tell them to imagine they are now living in the city. What does a city need? A city council. You can select three people to make up the city council by doing a random drawing.
•After the city council has been selected, ask the city council to decide on a mayor, which will be one of the three members of the city council.
•Then tell the class to put their heads down and give each student an identity and some money.
•Next, explain to the children that the city has a lot of problems to be resolved and this responsibility falls on the city council (show the slide in the PowerPoint titled “Problems”).
•Ask the city council to choose which problem to solve first and kind of improvise from there on.
•In the PowerPoint on the “Problems” slide, there are red stars and they are linked to other slides, so all you have to do is click on the red star using the mouse to go to the corresponding slide.
•Clicking on a red star will take you to a problem. So ask the city council how the problem can be resolved and incorporate the students who are related to the problem.
•For example, if you click on the red star by the thief, it will say that thieves are stealing money. Identify who are the thieves in the classroom. Then ask the city council to find a solution. They tell you to call the police. Identify the police in the classroom and ask them to take the thieves to jail (any place in the room). Then say that the police are performing a service and that they need to be compensated somehow. This is where taxes come into play. Ask the city council to then collect taxes from the citizens and then pay the police with that money.
•This activity can be very fun for the children and hopefully helps them understand the material better.
Copyright 07/3/2016 Nathan Florian
Publication or redistribution of any part of this
document is forbidden without authorization of the
copyright owner.
|
see more worksheets by nate.florian
|
