Article – Math: The Most Potent Civics Lesson You’ve Never Had

Posted by Education Week on January 14, 2020

A handful of educators are touting the benefits of using math to teach civics, and vice versa.

Elections are all about numbers, sometimes hinging on miniscule percentage-point differences in turnouts. Math teacher Alison Strole’s middle school students know this better than your average American, because they’ve actually had to wrestle with the data.

Strole, who teaches in the Hamilton Southeastern district in Fishers, Ind., requires students to analyze 20 years of exit-poll results—including the 2008 and 2016 presidential elections, where swing states twice reshaped the national balance of political power. Officially, this is part of her math unit on data analysis and how to read and interpret two-way data tables, part of 7th and 8th grade algebra. In practice it’s also a powerful civics lesson.

Read more from Education Week, Volume 39, Issue 16, Pages 1, 12 , November 26, 2019:  https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2019/11/26/math-the-most-powerful-civics-lesson-youve.html