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PRESIDENT'S DAY
PRESIDENT'S DAY was officially created in 1879 to celebrate the birthday of George Washington, the nation's first president.
It was simply called "Washington's Birthday" for a few decades.
When it was created, it joined Thanksgiving, July 4th, Christmas, and New Year's Day as one of 5 federally-recognized Holidays.
Most American's now see the day as celebrating not just Washington or Lincoln (Feb 12th birthday), but all presidents.
FUN FACT: 94 cities or counties are named after Washington across the nation, not including hundreds of high schools.
To start off Unit 6 on the 3 Early Documents of our nation's history, we will play a simulation called "Win the White House." The Founding Fathers believed strongly that our leader shouldn't be a King or Queen who was born into power and would reign until they died. They believed our national leader should be chosen through an election, where people from each state would cast their votes.
In "Win the White House," you will be running a nationwide election with the goal of winning the presidency.
You will need to take TWO SCREENSHOTS during this simulation. Both will be pasted to the Unit 6 Simulations Doc.
Screenshot your campaign kit graphic once you set your agenda and slogan.
At the conclusion of your campaign race, screenshot your final results.
Instructions to get started with Win the White House follow below!
The link above will take you to the simulation activity.
After clicking "Play" you will see the screen to the right. Choose NO THANKS.
Choose Middle School, but if you want an extra challenge you could go with the High School version.
Choose a name and Avatar for your character. Use your real name!
Decide your home state. You can choose good ol' Iowa or any state in the Union.
Choose a political party. If you aren't sure, you can choose one, check out the party beliefs, and then click "back" if you don't agree with what the party believes.
If you click on the circle topics, you can see a little more about a typical belief members of that party hold.
For example, the screenshots to the left show typical party beliefs a Democrat would have for Preventing Gun Violence, as well as what party beliefts a Republican would have for Fight Terrorism Abroad.
Click on a few to see which party your own beliefs most closely align with.
Then click Continue.
You will then be directed to your party's primary, where you will need to defeat other challengers within your party to become the person who will represent your party for the race to the White House.
You will choose five different topics that you want to focus on as a candidate. Choose one and answer a question about it.
As long as you answer fairly wisely you will win your party's primary and go on to represent the party for the Presidential Election.
CAMPAIGN SLOGAN!
Next choose your campaign slogan.
CAMPAIGN KIT!
Every good campaign has stuff to hand out to the people. Shirts, buttons, etc. When you get your campaign kit screen, TAKE A SCREENSHOT OF YOUR CAMPAIGN KIT STUFF. (shirt, 5 agenda topics, buttons, etc.)
PASTE this screenshot onto the Unit 6 Simulations Doc.
CHOOSE THE TUTORIAL!!
I highly recommend taking a few minutes to do the primary tutorial.
It will show you how to poll states to find out what topics are important there, raise money for the campaign, run ads, and check your popularity! It takes 3-4 minutes but is very helpful for the election race.
Now Choose your running mate.
Choosing your Vice President is important!
It may be helpful to pick a person from a state in a different region and with different strengths. The goal is to appeal to as many people as possible to earn the most votes.
The game then randomized which states favor Democrats, Republicans, or are neutral. It's up to you to choose which states to win. For every state you win, you earn the # below the state abbreviation. These are electoral votes and help you win the White House. For example, California has 55, while Alaska has 3.
NOTE: Red states favor Republicans. Blue states favor Democrats. Purple are neutral. If they have no color to start, you need to poll the state to find out which party they lean to and which issues are most important to the people living there.
Top Left Button: How many electoral votes winning a state gets you. Winning larger states is more important than smaller states!
2nd Button: Your popular support at the moment. Look at the pie graph: blue is Democrat and red is Republican.
3rd Button: icons show how much momentum you have in a state. Red elephants mean Republicans are surging. Blue donkeys = Dems.
4th Button: State funds show how much money the state has available to fundraise. You must be leading a state to win the $$!
You have 10 weeks to win enough electoral votes to become the next President of the United States. During this time you can:
Poll new states (no color) to see what topics the people there are interested in. This will also tell you if you can win in that state.
Fundraise in states to earn money. This earns you valuable dollars needed to continue to run your campaign.
Run advertisements. This can help persuade people and change the momentum, which helps you win a state.
Appearance. These appearances also help you win momemtum, which helps you win a state.
Good luck! Screenshot your final results! Reward for the person who wins the White House by the largest margin.
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