The Road to the Capitol has to be one of the coolest sites I have seen to help kids understand government and the campaign and election process. Students are immediately greeted by a newspaper headline “Congressman Retires: who will represent the US on Capitol Hill?”. Students are then taken to a TV ad of one of the candidates running for congress, Roberta Glass. Roberta thinks that kids have too much freedom and should be banned from freely accessing media like movies, TV, video games, and the computer. Students are offered the opportunity to run against Roberta Glass in the election. Students must register as a candidate in the election and are then introduced to their campaign manager. Students make 5 campaign stops in their local congressional district. At each stop, it is their job to help citizens understand the importance of protecting freedom. Students can stop at campaign headquarters at any time to get briefed for each campaign event. At the Campaign Headquarters, students click on important topics to get briefed on such as: Justice and Equality, Rights to Privacy, Freedom of Assembly, Freedom of Expression, and Freedom of Religion. When students choose a topic, they are taken to subtopics that lead them to rich resources where they can delve deeper into the topic and learning. Along the campaign trail, students have to make their own commercial, give a speech, talk to students about the freedom of expression, answer questions in a press conference, and debate Roberta Glass head to head. I can’t stress enough what an awesome interactive site this is. Every webquest should involve kids in the story and process the way this one does!
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