1. Internet Scavenger Hunt

Purposes:

• Students will have the chance to discover interesting facts and information about Canada's Prime Ministers
• Students will learn to use appropriate search mechanisms to find information on the Government of Canada Web site

Grade Levels: Grades 7 and 8

• List of items to search for (page 26) (Answer key page 27)
• Computers with Internet access

• Introduce the students to the Government of Canada Web sites
• Introduce students to the search mechanisms on the Web sites
• Try a few sample searches to get students started; emphasize that when stating the location of the item that you found, you must also list the URL address
• Provide each student with a list of items to search for and start the search

• Completion of the activity with the correct responses and URLs

2. Election Time

Purposes:

• Students will learn about the federal electoral process
• Students will understand how things are organized in a federal election campaign
• Students will use appropriate language related to the electoral process

Grade levels: Grades 6 - 8

• General information on elections and the election procedures
• Elections Canada Web site
• Activity sheet: Federal Election Time (page 25)

• Read the information and discuss the processes; some thoughts may already be familiar to the students if they have experienced a recent election
• If you are using the Elections Canada web site, allow students to explore the site
• Provide students with the activity sheet and have them complete the activity

• Correct responses on activity sheet
• Wise use of class time

3. Graphing Election Results

Purposes:

• Students will learn the basic attributes of spreadsheet and graphing features in Word processing packages
• Students will learn to represent data in a variety of formats to determine which type of format best suits the information being presented

Grade Levels: Grades 4 - 8

• Results of classroom, school, provincial, or federal election
• Computer access - must include a word processing package that enables students to use a spreadsheet feature that will translate information into a number of different styles and formats of graphs
• Access to a printer (colour is preferred but black and white is acceptable)

• Create a simple spreadsheet with a set number of attributes to test and demonstrate how the spreadsheet functions will work
• Graph the sample information in two or three ways. Discuss which type of graph is easiest to read and provides the best interpretation of the data
• Provide students with the results of an election (federal is best because it provides additional information that can be used in a spreadsheet)
• Decide as a class or predetermine the attributes that will be included on the spreadsheet (e.g. name of political party, number of seats that were won, regions where most seats were won, etc)
• Create spreadsheets with the information. Print the spreadsheet
• Graph the spreadsheet data
• Determine which graph is the best representation of the data. Print the best representation of the data

• Wise use of class time
• Completed and printed spreadsheet and graph
• Teacher created rubric