What are some creative ways to get students involved in politics?

Have campaigns and elections in your classroom to let them see first hand how it works. Form a government in class. Many questions will start being asked then. Kids love class participation especially if it's fun. If you really want to get them excited have a court trial in the classroom complete with a judge and jury.

Go to the schools. Have a concert or some give-aways. Have music that is politically aware. You can find new or budding artists online that would love the chance to perform and get the exposure to the world.

Also hand out promotional hats and T-shirts as prizes to contests. It could be a prize for answers to questions like "Who can guess the closest amount to what the national debt will be when you have to pay it off?

What will happen to earth if we do nothing to stop global warming?

Etc,,

Also have a display where they can register to vote if they are old enough and fill out a sample ballot,

Sign up interested students to work for different Presidential candidates.

Tell them something like "Did you hear that all the XYZ (make up your own category) tudents are going to be sent to a different school" ...or some other offensive new "law" to piss them off and have the argue why that shouldn't be. Parlay this into a discussion of rights and "issues at stake" in the upcoming election and why it all matters to them personally.

I think that should come from the parents myself. We talk to our daughter about different issues and even though she is a pre-teen, she doesn't always agree with mom and dad. That is a good thing.

The schools have a tendency to be too liberal...go figure. If they could keep an open mind and let the kids make the decisions then I would say they should go for it. But one of the schools my child went to, they pushed them into agreeing with them. That isn't right!

Let them have debates and mock elections. Try to show them how politics affects their lives and will even more so when they get out into the real world

Make a PS3 or wii game about it. then plaster some fancy statement about how cool it is to be involved in politics on fast food packaging or make radio and TV commercial about it and repeat them twelve hundred times a day. Do what the republicans and the conservative media do to us everyday.

Pose hypothetical questions to them that would affect their daily lives. If they don't vote, they have no right to complain. Example, "What do you think about cellphones being banned for minors?" or "Do you think it is okay to require minors to take a class and apply for a license for a cellphone?" I think , you would get a huge discussion group on that.

My government teacher had us "be" one of the candidates and we got in groups and debated the issues as the candidate. Each of us came up with a debate question, then we were given copies of the questions so we could research our persons stand on the issue. It was challenging and fun.

Have a look at myverdict.net, an ideal way to become involved in all issues, in every community.

Threaten to reinstate the draft. They will pay attention then!

I do think our younger generation pays attention to politics, but I think it could be made easier.