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On Friday, February 1, Mr. Shields’s Springville Junior High eighth-grade history classes voted on who would win the Super Bowl. Mr. Shields said, “It is a good way to show students how the Electoral College works. It is a fun way to teach with participation. The voting gets quite intense and brings an element of fun to learning about the voting system.”
In order to vote, Mr. Shields uses the Electoral College. The Electoral College is a system in which each state gets a certain amount of votes. The number of electoral votes a state gets is determined by their two senators plus however many people the state has in the House of Representatives. For example Utah has six votes, two in the Senate and four in the House of Representatives. Whichever candidate gets the most votes out of the state’s population wins all the votes for the state. Bennett Hullinger, an eighth grader at SJHS,said, “If the candidate wins a portion of the state, like two thirds of the state they should get two thirds of the votes not all of them, but it is a pretty good system.” Mr. Shields said, “For the most part, the Electoral College is effective. I can see why the little states would be upset though, because they have less effect on the total number of votes.”
Mr. Shields’s classes didn’t vote quite the same way as the normal Electoral College. Seth Mortensen, an eighth grader, said, “You picked a state card and you got that state’s votes. Then we put it in the computer onto a map. It was like voting for the president.” This system is a good way to keep it fair so the first kids didn’t get all the biggest states.
According to Mr. Shields, the 49ers won the electoral and popular vote, and it is ironic because they won by three votes in the popular vote, but lost by three points in the real game. Bennett Hullinger, said, “I’m not a huge fan of either team, but I don’t really like the 49ers, so I was happy the Ravens won.” Some people were happy about the outcome of the game, but others were not so happy. According to Seth Mortensen, he was disappointed the 49ers didn’t win. Meanwhile, Mr. Shields said, “I wanted the Ravens to win. I wanted them to win before the game started, I didn’t pick them after like some people do!”
The voting was very successful. Katelynn Vaughn, an eighth-grade girl, said, “The voting was fun, even though I don’t really like football. I would vote again only over something more fun like: Justin Bieber v.s. Zac Efron, who is hotter?” Mr. Shields said, “The students caught on well to how the system works. It sparked interest and got great participation.”