Classroom Activity: Track President Obama’s Campaign Promise Fulfillment

February 13th, 2009 By: Diane Trim in Articles, Teachers' Corner

PolitiFact.com, the fact-checking site from the St. Petersburg Times that brought you the Truth-o-Meter during the 2008 presidential election, has posted a new device for tracking President Obama’s 510 campaign promises: The Obameter.

The Obameter lists the latest updates to the campaign on its front page and has a 57-item category list of promises that range from agriculture and ethics to terrorism and trade.

To celebrate President’s Day and the new administration, it would be fun to use the 510 campaign promises list as a class project in either social studies or math – or both.

Here’s my game:

• Over the course of a week, ask students to visit http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/subjects/.
• Students should select five campaign promises with a No Action status. Each of the five should be from a different category; however, students can employ strategies to improve their chances of winning.
  Students record their campaign promise, its number, and its category on a scorecard.
• Each week, visit Politifact.com to track the success of the campaign promises. The first student to have all five campaign promises realized wins a fabulous prize of your choosing.
• Alternate ending: if no one has all five campaign promises with the status of Kept, tally up the points on May 20 (Obama’s fourth month in office) and award prizes to the students with the most points.

Other activities:

• As a whole class activity, track which of the 57 categories garner the most attention from the Obama White House.
• Discuss which campaign promises are stalled or broken and why.
• Track Obama’s (and other politician’s) truthfulness on Politi-fact’s Truth-o-Meter, too.

Tags: social studies, Website