My City: Other Educational Activities
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There are many ways in which civic education can be taught in the classroom. The following activities were pulled from Florida League of Cities’ educational material and can be modified for various grade levels. In addition, many of Florida’s cities offer city-school partnerships that can be incorporated into your curriculum. Contact your local city for information about their programs.
History
Students can research how their particular city is laid out and develop maps for important landmarks, government buildings and businesses in relation to their home and school. They can ask their city’s planning department for material to help with their research.
Students can research how their city got its name. If they live outside a city, they can select a nearby city.
Students can research the development and history of their city. Resource people can include city government officials and the historical society.
Students can research the development of cities in the State of Florida. What might have caused development to occur as it did (i.e., train routes)?
Students can research any festivals/celebrations held locally and the historical significance to the development of their city.
Governing Body
Students can research how cities have been governed throughout history. They can begin to see different systems of governing. Invite elected city officials into the classroom for presentations and discussions.
Invite the city clerk to speak to students about city elections and what is involved.
If there is a city election being held during the school year, students can read and analyze information about the election from the newspaper and discuss the candidates/issues with classmates through class discussion. Then, on voting day, students can vote on the race(s) or issue(s). Compare their results with the actual outcome of the election.
Students can study the roles of city officials and how a city council meeting is run. Field trips to actual council meetings would be beneficial. Students can conduct their own council meetings dealing with issues that are relevant to their city or school.
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Appointed Positions
Students can research the different appointed city positions available in their city. Presentations can then be made to the class. Field trips or classroom visits by city personnel would be appropriate.
Reports and/or interviews can be done about the specific city positions. Students can brainstorm about what kinds of services they think they receive from the city. What departments do they think provide these services? How often do they use them?
City Services
Students can design posters, booklets or multimedia presentations about the services that they use in their city.
Resource people from different departments can come and talk with the students about the services that are provided by the city.
Students can take field trips to city service facilities.
Students can obtain an organizational chart from their city. Review the various departments and services of the city with the students.
Citizen Participation
Brainstorm what students think an elected official is. Ask an elected city official to speak to the class about why he/she ran for public office. What kind of qualifications did they need? What laws and regulations did they have to follow in the process? Has it turned out how they expected?
Hold a mock city election in the class.
Students can research how citizen participation in government has evolved through history.
Students can follow and investigate a current issue in the community. If possible, students can attend or tape a city council meeting about the issue. Students then can hold their own election on the issue. They may wish to become involved in the actual issue. Presentations can be written reports, posters, charts, graphs, plays or multimedia.
City Budgets
Students can research how cities get and spend their money.
Students can research how specific city departments have developed budgets. Invite personnel from a city department for a discussion with the class about the process.
Contact the city to obtain a budget and discuss it with the class. To illustrate the budget, students can create different forms of graphs. Students can review the costs of running a specific department (i.e., police department). To carry this action further, students can compare the costs of different government items to items that they are familiar with. For example, how much does a police car cost? Compare that to how many bicycles can be purchased with the same amount of money.
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| My City Home Page | Civic Review | Facts on Florida Cities | Duties of Municipal Officials | Vocabulary | Lesson 1 | Lesson 2 | Lesson 3 | Lesson 4 | Lesson 5 | Answer Key
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