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How does the democratic process transform diverse individual perspectives into collective decisions that impact everyone?

Mock elections project

Duration

5 - 6 weeks

Group Size

5 - 6 students

Grade Level

Middle School, 6th, 7th, 8th

Subjects

Civics, Government, Social Studies
$8.00

Project Description

This standards-aligned project immerses middle school students in a hands-on civic simulation that explores how democracy functions. Students take on the roles of citizens, interest groups, elected officials, and media to research, deliberate, and make collective decisions on real-world issues. The project incorporates Common Core ELA and C3 Framework standards and includes detailed, student-friendly rubrics to support learning, feedback, and performance improvement.

Why Use this Project?

This project offers a dynamic, real-world approach to teaching civic education by allowing students to experience the democratic process from the inside out. It builds collaboration, critical thinking, communication, and empathy—all essential skills for engaged citizenship. With a step-by-step structure, ready-to-use templates, and detailed guidance for both teachers and students, this lesson plan is easy to implement and highly engaging. Ideal for schools looking to strengthen student voice and connect social studies to real-world problem-solving.

What's Included

  • General Guidelines: Students work in teams, assume civic roles, and use collaborative strategies to simulate real-world democratic processes.
  • Brainstorming: Teams generate ideas using structured, creative techniques like mind mapping and issue clustering to identify public problems that involve multiple perspectives.
  • Project Planning and Designing: Students fill out a guided goal sheet and timeline to divide responsibilities, set weekly goals, and research their roles.
  • Project Execution: Teams carry out tasks, meet regularly, rotate leadership roles, and iterate based on peer and teacher feedback.
  • Simulation: Students present their viewpoints and engage in a structured debate that leads to a collective decision, simulating how democratic systems function in real life.
  • Presentation: Students create a final product—either a slide deck, live presentation, or video—to explain their simulation experience, decision, and what they learned about civic processes.
$8.00

One-time purchase, lifetime access