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Supporting meaningful civic conversations
This semester, elections are in the news as electoral events take place at the municipal, provincial, federal and international levels. Your students might have tricky questions—we’re here to help!
Our inquiry-based resources can support you, and your students, in exploring big ideas related to elections and democracy.
Learning to engage in meaningful and respectful civic conversations is important year-round, not only during a general election, by-election or referendum.
Our recently updated resources can help get the conversation started!
Adapting for diverse learning environments
In Mapping Electoral Districts, students explore the key themes of equality and equity.
To make sure that diverse learners can meaningfully engage in the discussion, consider ways to apply equality and equity in your lesson plan. The teacher’s guide includes suggested adaptions, helpful vocabulary, teaching tips and a teacher fact sheet.
Discover how you can adapt the resource to give all students the opportunity to learn about what makes electoral districts fair.
Asking questions to deepen learning
To facilitate classroom conversations and deepen learning, we’ve added a new activity page for our Voting Around the World series. Each student-friendly article now includes discussion prompts and a printable PDF.
Our latest article breaks down different electoral systems, including first-past-the-post, in an engaging, accessible way for students. Pair it with prompts like the one below to make it into a full lesson!
Discussion prompt: Ask students to take a position on their preferred electoral system and gather evidence from the article to support their position. To share their findings, students could hold a U-shaped discussion, or they could write a paragraph or create a poster, video or infographic.
Extending civic learning beyond social studies
Civic conversations belong in every class, including math.
Elections by the Numbers is the perfect cross-curricular resource to show how mathematical processes are applied in a real-world context.
Using more than a decade of voter turnout data, students analyze and compare youth voting trends with those of other age groups. Keep the conversation going by using Elections Canada’s interactive turnout visualization tool as an extension activity.
No matter what subject you teach, this resource helps students understand the power of data in making sense of important issues that affect their communities.
We’re moving to Elections Canada’s social media channels
Beginning next month, we’ll be sharing civic education content through Elections Canada’s social media channels instead of @democracyCA on Facebook and X. This transition will bring civic education news and resources together with other Elections Canada content, all in one place.
Follow Elections Canada to stay informed about our resources, activities and updates to the Civic Education program.
Our recommendations
Resources that align with current and upcoming events
- Which Election?
For those in a region with upcoming elections, learn about the three levels of government and elections. - Voting Rights through Time
This Women’s History Month, use the case study on the history of women’s voting rights in Canada. - Comparing electoral systems: Canada and the United States
Check out this lesson if your students have questions about how Canada’s electoral system compares with that of the United States.
Articles
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