We have spent decades working on our Simulation of Congress.  This set of materials provides teachers with directions, resources, and guides to run a complete simulation of the House of Representatives.  Our students have often considered this simulation to be one of the highlights of their school year!  The learning is deep, and often quite meaningful to students.  As teachers, we also enjoyed this unit more than any other.

Way back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, we created Version 1 of this simulation using Apple’s HyperCard program.  Our Simulation of Congress Version 1 had 100+ fictitious Members of Congress for students to portray, a tool for writing bills, the ability to randomly select the Members to be assigned, and other features that only a software program could provide.  We sold a great many licenses for this software.  However, when teaching US Government classes ourselves, we found having our students portray the real members of Congress was better and as online resources became readily available for researching Members and their districts, students learned additional skills.  All of the materials you will find in Version 2 of our product are improvements we’ve made over the past 25.

The Simulation of Congress Version 2 comes with our Analyzing Congress Database Activity which should be used as one of the preliminary lessons.  There’s no need to purchase this additional lesson plan separately.

• Subject Areas: Government, Civics, Social Sciences, Humanities
• Materials Required: Printed copies of the materials we provide, recordings of CSPAN segments or Internet access to stream them.  For the Analyzing Congress activity: A virtual classroom or other screen sharing tool, or a large screen display with a computer.
• Time Needed: Typically 5 to 7 weeks with five hour long class periods per week or a similar block schedule.

Below is an image showing the suggested scheduling of lessons and activities one could use with this unit:

• How representative of the average American is Congress?
• What traits are common for current members?
• What does this analysis tell us about what it takes to be a Member of the House of Representatives?

This teaching guide and lesson plan provides you with the resources to do a deep dive on current Members of the House of Representatives.

• Subject Areas: Government, Civics, Social Sciences, Humanities
• Materials Required: Virtual classroom or other screen sharing tool, or a large screen display with a computer.
• Time Needed: Typically two to three class periods.

Special Note: This product comes with our Simulation of Congress.  Buy one or the other, but not both perhaps.

Carter’s Dilemma asks students to consider what they would do if they had been President Carter as he attempted to negotiate a peaceful outcome with the Haitian government knowing that the Clinton administration was preparing to send in military forces.

Please download and read our free Cognitive Moral Dilemma Teaching Guide to prepare for this teaching strategy.

• Subject Areas: Social Sciences, Sciences, Humanities, Government
• Materials Required: Whiteboard or display
• Time Needed: Typically half or an entire class period

Be sure to download the free Cognitive Moral Dilemma Teacher’s Guide, too, as it provides the methodology and process for using this lesson plan.

• Subject Areas: Social Sciences, History, Humanities, Government, Media Studies, Current Events
• Materials Required: Whiteboard or display
• Time Needed: Typically an entire class period