Sample lesson plan:

Subject

History

Supplementary Materials

Handouts, Beach Ball, Students

Lesson

Evolving forms of government, US government social issues

Concepts

The concepts for this lesson and activity are for the students to begin to understand how important it is for different partisan groups in our government to put party politics aside for the best interests of our country.

Activity

Antigravity

Place

Open classroom (with high ceiling), gym, field

Objectives

After in-class discussion on formations of government and the antigravity activity, students will be able to:

1. Identify at least 3 types of existing forms of governments throughout the world.
2. Identify orally the legislative branches of the United States government.

These are done according to teacher’s grading rubric.

Procedures/Content

Integrate Anti Gravity into your lesson by dividing the class into the legislative groups of the government you are concentrating on. (i.g., Democrats, Republicans, senators, congress women and men, etc.). With these groups arrange them into circles—think of a bull’s-eye, smaller circle in the center and progressively get larger.

Inform participants they are party politicians with specific agendas to accomplish and each circle is different from the next. Then introduce the beach ball as society, the forefront of our nation’s priorities.

Next, say that their goal is to keep the ball “society” from hitting the ground. Students can count the amount of consecutive hits, which equate to the number of years of democracy and freedom their society will have.

You will find that at first the ball will drop often and most likely students will remain in their circles or “government parties” and not solving the problem of the falling society. If this happens, encourage them to support each other to keep society aloft.

Continue to guide them through the activity according to the description on the Inspire! CD, and remember to integrate the concepts reviewed in your lesson!

Debrief

Begin to debrief this activity by asking what happened in each circle or “government party” within the group. Then ask more precise questions when topics you feel pertinent are tossed out by the students. Lead them into describing how they were successful and how they were unsuccessful with keeping the ball aloft. Then ask how we see this in our society in the past and present. who were the parts of the lever (bill was the fulcrum…).

Variation

Depending on the lesson, change the type of government (dictatorship, democracy, etc.) and have the students emulate how that type would approach the activity. For example, in a dictatorship, where no one else has a say, cast one student as the dictator making the decisions on how to improve, a situation or implement change. Then see what happens!

Assessment

Use this activity as a great introductory for students to begin conceptualizing how governments are divisional, yet need to work together for the sake of one common goal.