Branches+of+Power



For my educational game, I chose the iCivics game called Branches of Power. This is built to help the young learner how the three branches of the US Gov't work together to create laws and policies. This was an easy to learn and highly engaging game in which you juggle between being the president, a member of congress, and a supreme court judge working your way around a map of different issues that you all need to work together to create laws for. The topics range from a variety of education, business, environmental and healthcare related issues with a goal of creating ten laws within the allotted time period (either 30-45 minutes, I can't remember). As president, you go around "creating policies" by bringing up the issues you want to tackle/raise awareness for in press conferences. after the conference, you switch to the congressman and have town hall meetings to raise citizen support for that issue. Once you gain enough support, you go to congress and draft a bill that will gain majority support from congress and the citizens from the town hall, then send it back to the president. As president you review the law with sub-laws written into it and can either sign or veto it. If you pass a law that may be unconstitutional, than you as the supreme court judge must review the case and make a ruling on it. It sounds complicated, but the game makes it easy to follow, and I as the gamer got really into the whole process creating new laws. Of course the game oversimplifies the process, but it does paint a nice picture of "how the sausage is made"- so to speak- in Washington... without the mess. This game would be ideal for the middle school age range, but could be also used in high school (it's a little cheesy for the older student, but I think they still might get wrapped up in the process). You learned by doing in this game, meaning you are actually a member of congress with a set of goals trying to push your agenda while appeasing your peers. You are the president, choosing policies that you think are important for the country. By doing the process over and over, as efficiently as you can (to beat the timer) you understand the process fairly quickly. As a teacher, this game would be quite effective for your class to engage your students in the governing process, and to show them why it's important for them to care who their representatives are as they are supposed to be representing THEM and THEIR values to the Gov't. After having your students play this game for a period, them you can engage them in deeper conversations about the inner workings of the gov't and they will have a mental map of what it looks like. I reccommend playing this game, even if you are not into politics, because it'll help you understand how things work in Washington, or at least how it's supposed to work.