Government Studies Resources

Suggested Activities & Resources

Political Economy 1

  • The Economics of Public Issues by Roger LeRoy Miller, Daniel Benjamin, and Douglass North.

  • Common Sense Economics: What Everyone Should Know About Wealth and Prosperity by James Gwartney, Richard Stroup, Dwight Lee, Tawni Hunt Ferrarini, and Joseph Calhoun

U.S. Government

Foundations of Democracy

  • Primary sources such as Magna Carta, Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, Federalist Papers, Anti-Federalist Papers, etc.

  • Primary sources: selections from Jean-Jacues Rousseau, Montesquieu, etc.

  • English Petition of Rights

  • English Bill of Rights

  • U.S. Supreme Court case: Marbury vs. Madison (1803)

  • U.S. Constitution: Bill of Rights and Articles IV-VII

  • Simulation: Constitutional Convention Reenactment

  • Rewrite the preamble to the Constitution to reflect present day concerns and purposes

  • Identify one amendment that should be added today

  • Debate the ratification of the Constitution from the perspective of the federalists and anti-federalists.


The Political Process, Voting, and the Media

  • Project Citizen/ We the People

  • Kids Voting

  • Weekly discussion of current events

  • Community service learning opportunities

  • Maintain political journal of news articles (local, state, national)

  • Register students to vote

  • Explore ways to increase voter turnout

  • Trace the development of an issue through interest groups and the media

  • Interview various persons about why they do or do not participate in the political process


Legislative Branch

  • U.S. Constitution – Article 1

  • 17th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution

  • Fantasy Congress: Congress members earn points as they do in Fantasy Football

  • Board game: How a Bill Becomes a Law

  • Match various implied power to their expressed powers

  • Trace the fate of particular legislation at various levels of government

  • Simulations: write legislation, caucuses, conference committees, etc.

  • Write to a legislator regarding a specific issue or concern. • The Congressional timeline: 1933 – Present (http://www.congressionaltimeline.org)

  • Center on Congress at Indiana University (www.congress.indiana.edu)

  • Committee simulation (www.congresslink.org lessons)

  • Caucus simulation (www.house.gov/forbes/newsroom).

  • Budget Hero (www.marketplace.org)

  • C-SPAN

  • Congressional newspaper (www.thehill.com)

  • Lesson plans/games for learning civics (www.icivics.org)

Executive Branch

  • U.S. Constitution: 22nd and 25th Amendments

  • Executive Order 9066 (1942)

  • War Powers Resolution

  • Analysis of political cartoon to understand contemporary issues

  • Library of Congress (www.loc.gov)

  • C-SPAN

  • Research one president and have students look at the various ways he used his powers

  • Compare and contrast the various leadership styles of past presidents

  • View past presidents fulfilling various roles using C-SPAN clips

  • Use interactive website of the Electoral College to predict the next election

  • Identify the fewest number of states that a candidate must capture in order to win the Electoral College

  • View and analyze the State of the Union Address

  • Simulation: If the Electoral College vote is a tie, how will the House of Representatives vote?

  • View the poll ratings for various presidents.

  • Identify the characteristics that make for a great leader.

  • Use of presidential tapes from the national archives.

  • PollyVote Election Forecasting (www.pollyvote.com)

  • iCivics teaching materials (www.icivics.org)

  • Library of Congress lesson plans and resources (www.loc.gov)


Judicial Branch

  • Research a member of the U.S. or Alaska Supreme Court

  • View a clip of a Supreme Court appointment hearing

  • View a portion of a televised State Supreme Court case

  • U.S. Constitution: Article III

  • Visit a court and meet with a local judge

  • Explore the jury system by looking at death penalty cases: Mendez; 12 Angry Men, film (1957), etc.

  • Guess how the Supreme Court will rule on upcoming cases using SCOTUS (www.supremecourtus.gov).


Civil Right and Civil Liberties

  • Photo analysis depiction of key events in the Civil Rights Movement

  • Mock trial of a key case: Gatz, Johnson, Bollinger, Vernonia, etc.

  • U.S. Constitution: 5th and 14th Amendments

  • The United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights

  • U.S. Supreme Court case: Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896)

  • Simple Justice: Brown vs. Board of Education: PBS American Experience film series

  • U.S. Supreme Court case: Gibbons vs. Ogden (1824)

  • Controversy in the classroom: Diana Hess

  • Constitutional Rights Foundation (http://crf-usa.org)

  • The Oyez Project (www.oyez.org).

U.S. Legal Systems

Introduction to the Course

    • U.S. Supreme Court case: Marbury vs. Madison (1803)

    • U.S. Supreme Court case: McCulloch vs. Maryland(1819)

    • Judge as a guest speaker in the classroom

    • Obtain a draft of a bill from your local, state or federal legislature for students to analyze


Three Branches of Government

  • U.S. Constitution: Articles I, II and III

  • Volunteer at a voting station

  • Federalists papers

  • C-SPAN

  • Analyze current Supreme Court cases


Law as a Resource to Resolve Social Problems and Perform Social Functions

  • 6th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution

  • 7th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution

  • 14th Amendment, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution

  • Constitution Article 111, Section 2

  • Twelve Angry Men, film (1957) (Rated PG)

  • Have students look at fairy tales and choose one that could result in a tort.

  • Have students engage in a mock trial.

  • Public Citizen Congress Watch (www.citizen.org/congress/civjus/home.html)

  • The Association of Trial Lawyers (www.atlanet.org)

  • The Institute for Civil Justice (www.rand.org/jie/civil-justice.html)

  • Nolo: Law for All (www.nolo.com)

  • Consumer Credit/Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School (www.law.cornell.edu/topics/consumer_credit.html)

  • Landlord & Tenant/Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School (www.law.cornell.edu/topics/landlord_tenant.html).

Law as a Social Necessity

  • Universal Declaration of Human Rights

  • International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

  • International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

  • Plan a field trip to visit local or borough meetings, school board or other lawmaking body. Students should examine some laws enacted by these bodies and learn the procedure for passing the laws.

  • Research a law in Alaska and see how it applies to different states


Laws as a Means of Protecting Individual Rights and Basic Social Values

  • U.S. Supreme Court case: Tinker vs. Des Moines School District (1969)

  • U.S. Supreme Court case: Bethel School District vs. Fraser (1986)

  • Students research President Franklin Roosevelt’s Court Packing proposal and write a research paper on how they believe the court and history might have been different if he had followed through with his proposal. The research paper should be 4-7 pages in length with an annotated bibliography.

  • U.S. Supreme Court case: Goss vs. Lopez (1975)

  • U.S. Supreme Court case: Lochner vs. New York (1905)