Learn How Your Community Works
Build your knowledge about how local government works, who represents you, and how you can use your voice to participate in your community.
Instructions: Select 1-2 activities from the choices below to complete.
Counties Work
How would you enjoy a job in county government? Do you know how to maintain a balanced budget? Play Counties Work to try your hand!
Who Represents Me?
Do you know who represents you in your local government? Build a contact list to get in touch with them in this web activity.
Cast Your Vote
One of the best ways to make your voice heard is through voting. Learn about the importance of local elections and where you stand on important issues.
Become a Civic Hero!
Do you know what it means to be a civic hero? Learn how to translate everyday chores into acts of civic engagement in this web activity.
Engage with Issues that Matter to You
Given what you have learned about local government and players in the activities above, dive a little deeper and turn your ideas into written word, artwork or action!
Instructions: Click on the menu items Write, Draw, Read, and Do one at a time to find activities. Choose 4 activities to complete.
❏ Would you like to see cleaner parks in your neighborhood? More funding going toward programs at your school? Write a letter to your local representative to describe a local issue that matters to you and how they might support it.
❏ Choose two poems to read, then write one of your own about a civic or government topic.
❏ Identify a local issue that’s important to you and help others support it along with you. Create a step-by-step guide to explain a civic process to someone else that could help solve your issue. It might be voting, contacting a representative, volunteering, or something else.
❏ A picture is worth a thousand words, and it communicates a lot to those who see it. Draw a picture or plan an art project that could be displayed in your community to bring awareness to an issue of your choice.
❏ Knowing the right representative to contact is key to solving civic issues. Draw a chart identifying your local and federal representatives. In your chart, include their contact information and examples of concerns they could help you address.
❏ Draw a picture of yourself as a government representative. In your picture, include the qualities that will make you a good representative.
❏ Pick up the local newspaper or look it up online. Find at least one article that talks about what is going on in your community. Read it and then share what you’ve learned with a friend or family member.
❏ Using your local newspaper, find an article in the OpEd section that interests you. Examine its text structure. Is it cause and effect? Problem and solution? Sequence? Something else? How does the text structure help you understand the article?
❏ Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? Can you answer each of these questions using an article from the newspaper?
❏ What is something that you could do to help your community be even better than it is today? Remember that you can even do things from home. Write what you will do and then with the permission of your caregiver, do it.
❏ Make a video about a local issue. Maybe your video explains what the issue is so that others can learn about it. Maybe it asks your local representatives to support a solution for the issue. Or maybe it explores solutions for solving it. With permission, post your video so that it can be shared and viewed.
❏ Be a part of a civic activity in your community virtually or in-person. Consider attending a town hall or council meeting. Find ways you could serve as a volunteer to fill a need. Or tour a building where civic activities occur.
Finished the activities? Head back to the top of the page. Grab a sibling, friend or caregiver and complete more of the activities together.