Kirsten 0:09

This is the social studies teacher podcast, a show for busy elementary teachers looking for fun and engaging ways to easily add social studies into their classroom schedule without feeling overwhelmed or pressed for time. I'm Kirsten of the Southern teach, an educator and mom who is passionate about all things social studies. I love sharing ideas and strategies that are low prep and easy to implement. So let's dive in together.

Kirsten 0:36

Hello, hello. Welcome to another episode of the social studies teacher podcast. Sit back and relax and let's have a little bit of a social studies lesson, not just for your students, but also for you. Here are some fun facts and things to know about the electoral college that is a key role in our electoral process, our election process. And of course, what better time to talk about it than the upcoming 2024 presidential election. I wanted to kind of share this with you, if you're looking, you know, for a way to incorporate current events, this is a great way. Today we're going to be talking about what the electoral college is. I'm going to share with you some fun facts about the Electoral College, and I'm going to share with you four tips for teaching the Electoral College to third, fourth, and fifth grade students. If you are a social studies teacher or you're a teacher in general, share this podcast episode with your teacher friends who also teach social studies. It would be so greatly appreciated. And then if you have an extra few minutes, I would also appreciate if you could rate and review my podcast, if you're loving it, and just share what you love about the podcast in general.

Kirsten 2:07

So going into the Electoral College, this is a very complex system that can be tricky to explain to students, but understanding this unique aspect of American democracy is so essential for fostering informed citizens, not just younger students who are not able to vote yet, but also just in general, the public and adults, anybody who's capable of voting. So let's talk about what the electoral college is. Every four years, American citizens cast their votes for president and vice president. But here's where it gets a little bit interesting. Those votes known as a popular vote don't directly elect the president. Instead, they determine who the 538 members of the Electoral College will be, and it's these electors who will ultimately elect the president and the vice president. The electoral college is organized by states. Each state gets a certain number of electors, which equals its number of senators, always two and representatives, which is based off of population. For example, a large state like California has 54 electors, while a smaller state like Wyoming has just three. They've got their two senators and the one representative. Washington, DC also has three electors. When citizens are voting, they are actually voting for a slate of electors chosen by their preferred political party. In most states, the party that wins the majority of the popular vote sends all its electors to vote in the electoral college. So if one state decides this, maybe it's Republican. Most of the popular vote is Republican. All the electors will vote in the Electoral College will be the Republican vote. Similarly with the Democrats. If most of the popular vote is democratic, that will go all of the electoral votes will go to the Democratic ticket. These electors then cast their votes for the President and Vice President, the candidates who receive the majority of electoral votes win the election.

Kirsten 4:27

All right, let's talk about some fun facts about the Electoral College. The Electoral College was created because the framers of the US Constitution were concerned that the average voter might not be well informed enough to choose a president directly. That is why a candidate cannot directly be president just based off of the popular vote. Most states use a winner takes all approach where the candidate with the most votes in that state wins all the electoral votes, like I mentioned previously. But there are some states like Maine and Nebraska that split their electoral votes based off of the popular vote. They'll divvy it up between how much was voted on in the popular vote. Four times in US history, a candidate has won the presidency despite losing the popular vote. This happened in 1876, 1888, 2000 with George W Bush becoming the president and Al Gore winning the popular vote, and 2016 with Donald Trump winning the presidency and Hillary Clinton winning the popular vote. 270 is the magic number. You might have heard that road to 270. A candidate needs at least 270 electoral votes to win the presidency. This is more than half of the total 538 electoral votes. And of course, that number is going to vary depending on the population. The census is every 10 years, and some states will have less or more depending on the population growth or population decline. So this number is variable.

Kirsten 6:03

Let's talk about four tips for teaching the Electoral College to third, fourth, and fifth graders. Step number one, or tip number one, use visual aids, diagrams, maps and charts are powerful tools when explaining the Electoral College. Show a map of the United States with the number of electoral votes for each state. This helps students visualize how different states contribute to the total electoral vote count. Just get a blank map, and you can even have them fill it out like you have maybe a PowerPoint slide where it gradually builds. But of course, 50 slides is a lot, but you could even have students in groups where, you know they're in five groups, and each group has one region of the US, and they find how many electoral votes each state gets in their region. Tip number two, simplify with comparisons. Compare the Electoral College to something students are familiar with, like a school election, something at a smaller scale, explain how voting for class president might involve different classes or grades having a certain amount of votes, just like how states have different numbers of electoral votes. A lot of the times class voting for class president would entail just a popular vote. But maybe you could do some kind of example where one class, because there's additional students in that class, they get an additional electoral vote, or something like that. Tip number three, interactive simulations, create a mock election in your classroom, assign students to represent different states and give them the appropriate number of electoral votes after the popular vote. Have students cast their electoral votes to see how the process works in action. So if somebody is Texas, maybe they might be two states. Let's say maybe you've got 25 students in their two states, however you want to do it, or you can just simplify it and maybe do a region of the United States, but you can, like, say you're Texas, you've got 40 electoral votes that you're working with. If that Texas person is casting their votes, they're going to be contributing to 40. And tip number four, discuss real life examples, share stories of past elections where the Electoral College played a crucial role, such as the 2002, 2016 elections. Just because it's so recent, you're probably going to get more videos and more information about those specific elections, and you can show pictures and examples, even maybe newspaper articles and videos, this can spark discussions about why the system exists and how it impacts the outcome of presidential elections.

Kirsten 8:48

So to conclude, all of this information, hopefully it was beneficial and helpful for you to understand the Electoral College. Teaching about the Electoral College to upper elementary students is rewarding, a little bit challenging, but still rewarding. But when you're using visual aids, you're simplifying the concept engaging students with interactive simulations, and also discussing real life examples you can help your students grasp this important aspect of American democracy. Understanding the electoral college not only helps students learn about the election process, but it also encourages critical thinking about the fairness and effectiveness of this system. Something I mentioned in a previous episode about understanding like the presidential election in general, I shared with you there's a resource you can do like or an activity you can do where on the day of the election, or on the night of the election, they take a blank map home, and they're coloring in which states are red, which states are blue, which, you know, basically they can add up the number of electoral votes that that state. So that kind of helps them understand in real time. Okay, why is this person winning more states, but they're not getting as many electoral votes. Well, even though the state looks really big like Wyoming or Colorado or Idaho, the population is smaller in those types of states, whereas you might have smaller states that are more densely populated, like Virginia or Maryland or Massachusetts, those states in the Northeast that are more densely populated are going to have more electoral votes. So just making sure they know it's not just about how big a state is by area. It's basically based off of population, and that determines how many electoral votes they get, and that kind of adds in towards the road to 270 but I hope this is helpful for you, and it gets your brain thinking of ideas during this year's election. I hope you have a great rest of your day, and I will talk to you again soon.

Thanks for listening to the social studies teacher podcast. If you enjoyed listening to this episode, hit that subscribe button and leave a review. I would love to hear your thoughts. You can also find me on Instagram at the southern teach I can't wait for you to join me in the next episode for more teacher tips and strategies.