Tip of the Week: Poly Sci Nerd Goodness

Yes. I am a poly sci nerd. Love elections. Love debates. Love the data. So meeting in DC this last week was . . . awesome.

And this morning, I ran across LegEx. A great way to close out a Poly Sci nerd week.

Short for Legislative Explorer and maintained by the University of Washington Center for American Politics and Public Policy, the site is a interactive visualization that allows you and your students to explore actual patterns of lawmaking in Congress. The graph provides a great way to get the big picture while providing opportunities to dig deeper. Compare the bills and resolutions introduced by Senators and Representatives and follow their progress from the beginning to the end of a two year Congress. Go back in time and compare / contrast different years, bi-partisan vs. partisan, parties, or House vs. Senate.

You can

Only true election and poly sci fanboys will enjoy this post

Fanboy

Syllabification: (fan·boy)

Pronunciation: /ˈfanˌboi/

noun
An extreme fan or follower of a particular medium or concept, whether it be sports, television, film directors, video games, etc.

Yes. That’s me. I follow politics. I’m an extreme fan of elections and love talking strategy, candidates, and poll numbers – and just about anything else that connects somehow with the process. I’m an election fanboy.

So I’m probably one of a very small group of election geeks who cares much about yesterday’s presidential election.

Wayback Wednesday: RealClearHistory – Right there in plain sight. (With maps. Lots of maps.)

I’ve been messing with maps this week. And why not? Maps are awesome. As part of my messing around, I ran across this older post about a great site that I had sort of forgotten. So . . . welcome back to Wayback Wednesday and RealClearHistory.

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For a while now, I’ve hung around over at RealClearPolitics. For a poly sci junkie, it’s a great place to spend a few minutes or a hundred, digging into polls, commentary, and election gossip. But it wasn’t until a few weeks ago that realized that the RealClear network of sites also has a History version.

Duh.

At RealClearHistory, you get the same sort of article aggregation from a variety of places in a variety of topics. We can all use a little more content knowledge and RealClearHistory is pretty decent place to find interesting resources and insight. And what better time than summer? To take full advantage, be sure to use the search feature in the top right to find articles, resources, and maps.

Yup. Maps. We all love a great map. Robert Louis Stevenson once observed:

It’s Bill of Rights Day! “. . . a fairer and more just world.”

The Constitution and its amendments seem pretty straight forward. The old girl is over 200 years old and has, for the most part, held up well. But helping kids understand the fragile nature of the ideas and practices embedded in the document can be difficult . . . especially when they see, hear, and read about attempts to ignore or circumvent those ideas and practices.

It’s been a long year. Especially if you’re a social studies teachers. (Government teachers, how ya doing?)

So perhaps it’s appropriate that we celebrate Bill of Rights Day every year on December 15. We get the cake and candles out. Shoot off some fireworks. Sing some old union organizing songs. Replay scenes from the Hamilton musical. Do it up right.

Wait . . . what? How many of you didn’t know that today is Bill of Rights Day?

RealClearHistory. Hiding there in plain sight. (With maps. Lots of maps.)

For a while now, I’ve hung around over at RealClearPolitics. For a poly sci junkie, it’s a great place to spend a few minutes or a hundred, digging into polls, commentary, and election gossip. But it wasn’t until a few weeks ago that realized that the RealClear network of sites also has a History version.

Duh.

At RealClearHistory, you get

Teaching Toolkit: 9 resources for discussing the government shutdown

As a poly sci junkie, I’m torn.

The 2018 government shutdown is bad for just about everybody. And it seems like it happened over something that most Americans want to see happen – protection for Dreamers. A Fox News poll says 86% of us support DACA. A CBS poll reports 87% supporting the idea.

But the shutdown does create an opportunity to jump into all sorts of conversations involving civics and procedure and policy and elections and checks and balances and three branches and  media bias . . . well, you get the idea. If you haven’t already, this week might be a good time to jump ship on your scheduled curriculum and spend some time making connections to the government side of the social studies.

Need a few quick resources?