Government Classes Learn About Presidential Election

By: Jenna Jenkerson

December 4, 2024

   As the 2024 Presidential Election came to a close, the senior US Government classes used the real-time events for studying the process. Colgan’s three levels of US Government classes have been taking the election to its classrooms and making it a learning experience for their students. Although each class may learn about the presidential election differently, they all have a common goal in mind: to make sure students learn how to properly research candidates that they would like to vote for in the future.

   In Jamie Hughes’ AP Government and Politics class, students participated in a mock presidential election. The experience runs each stage of an election, and each student has a job commonly seen in political elections. The jobs in the project ranged from Democratic and Republican party candidates to campaign managers and media teams from The Washington Post and Fox News. Roles were assigned after students in the class submitted a form based on their own interests in government and their own political ideologies.        

   Aayush Ghosh ’25, one of Hughes’ students, had the role of Johnny LeSanta, a Republican party primary 

candidate who hoped to run for president. The character is inspired by Florida Governor Ron Desantis. Ghosh, along with other candidates in his class, are encouraged to put their own spin on the candidate.

   “I’m just kind of looking at what the Republican Party kind of believes in and I’m kind of like fighting for that,” said Ghosh.

   In Courtenay Taylor’s DE US/VA Government class, she does annual assignments or projects regarding local and federal elections. However, with the 2024 Presidential Election, Taylor assigned her students a new task. Lasting 7-8 weeks, the group project required students to track presidential election campaigns and put together an election tracker for the data they found. They then made a podcast or explanatory video at the end of the project discussing their findings and prediction on who would win the election.

    “I want my students to be engaged and informed on this election cycle as it is important and relevant to not just the subject of government, but also their lives after they leave high school,” said Taylor of her goal for the project. “Applying these skills of research to future elections will hopefully inspire students to be politically aware and engaged after high school.”

   In William Gay’s General US and Virginia Government Class, students completed a presidential election project. With lectures on the electoral college, political parties and candidate selection, and political ideologies, the project consists of keeping track of election votes and the popularity of the candidates and predicting who would win the election by using statistics.

   Overall, the students in all three classes have gained something from the projects, even in the different classes. Mohammad Kamara ‘25, one of the candidates in Hughes’ classes says it allowed him to express his interest in politics.

   “[It] Definitely give me insight on the voter process, how campaigns really work, and how the media can manipulate things that you see,” says Kamara.