Students at the Chattanooga Girls Leadership Academy (CGLA) let their voices be heard on Election Day. During a school-wide election, all students grades 6-12, participated in this year’s election process in their own way. As students learned the importance of voting, they also tackled current issues.
Over the course of time, students were prepped for Election Day by participating in surveys, discussions and learning about each issue. Students took part in a blind pre-election by voting based on existing issues not on individual candidates. “Each student voted according to three different issues: healthcare, defense and education. Students were not informed on where individual candidates stood on the three issues. The outcome was phenomenal”, saidLindsey Davis, CGLA Social Studies teacher.
As a STEM school, CGLA naturally incorporated science into the election process. Science and math teachers provided a graphic analysis of voting results while CGLA’s Robotics Team is built voting machines. In addition to the school-wide election, CGLA arranged for high school seniors who werere registered to vote, to have transportation to participate in the 2012 national election.