CITIES IN THE CLASSROOM
Section III: Local Government in Our Lives
Lesson 11
Issue Identification Research/Choosing a Local Issue
SS.7.C.3.14 – Differentiate between local, state, and federal governments’ obligations and services.
LAFS.7.SL.1.1 – Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacherled) with diverse partners on grade 7 topics, texts, and issues, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own
clearly.
Source
Adapted from: Kletzien, S. B., and Rappoport, A.L. Kids Around Town: A Local Government Education
Model. League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania Citizen Education Fund, 1998.
Overview
In order for students to determine a local issue they genuinely care about and are willing to conduct
research on, create a solution and implement an action plan, they need awareness of local city government
issues. Through a variety of methods students will understand local issues.
Objective
 Each student will be able to identify local issues through a variety of research methods (such as:
conducting interviews, contacting local community organizations, writing letters, and researching
newspapers).
Time
 Two 50 minute class periods plus out of class information gathering
Vocabulary
 None
Strategies
 Guided independent activity
 Group discussion
 Cooperative Learning
Materials
 Applicable research worksheets
 Computers or tablets
Potential Roles of a Public Official
 Serve as an interviewee on local issues
 Become a point of contact, helping students get in touch with people in local government and
community organizations
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Activities
The intent of this lesson is to get students to investigate local issues of interest to them. Two 50 minute
sessions are set aside for students to research in a variety of ways. Various research methods are listed
below.
CHOOSING A LOCAL ISSUE
Students are often directly affected by legislation that the local government has recently enacted or is
planning to enact. For example, the local government may be considering building a community
swimming pool in one of the parks, or the local government may have passed an ordinance prohibiting
skate boarding on public streets. These are the kinds of public policy issues that affect students directly.
It is possible, however, that there are no burning issues in your community that obviously affect students'
lives. You still want students to study local government and policy issues; therefore you need a way to
find out about a local issue that you can build some enthusiasm for. You might try the following
suggestions:

Invite a local government official to come into your class and talk to the students about issues that
the local government is considering. Be sure that he/she understands that you want the focus on
issues that would directly affect the lives of the children in the classroom.

Take your class to visit the city manager or other official. Ask him/her to explain municipal
services that affect the students.

Invite a member of the League of Women Voters or of another community group to come in and
talk to the students about local issues that are being discussed in the community.
COMMUNITY RESOURCES
Members of these groups or individuals listed here might be able to talk to your students about
what they think are timely topics in your community. Most of these groups or individuals are
happy to come to your class to talk with your students. Prepare your students in advance to ask
appropriate questions; and explain clearly to the visitor the purpose of his/her being there.
City
County
Community Organizations
City Commissioner
School Superintendent
League of Women Voters
Mayor
Police Chief
City Manager

Environmental Committee
County Commissioner
Parks and Recreation Board
Community Organizations (such
as Rotary Club, Lions Club, etc.)
Business Associations
Newspaper editors
Prepare a list of services that are under the control of local government. Have students discuss
how these functions are carried out in their community. Look for student interest in particular
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areas.

Invite someone from a neighboring community to talk to the students about issues that are
important in that community. Try to discover why they are not important in the students'
community. (No one may have thought about them yet. They may affect only certain types of
areas.)

Discuss with students to see whether there are persistent concerns about issues concerning school
activities (such as playground safety) or community issues (such as crossing busy streets).

Take students on a walk around your community looking for possible problems such as park
vandalism or areas In need of beautification. If a real walk isn't possible, try a "Mind Walk" using
a map of your community to have students identify possible interests.

Watch a local public meeting on cable television. See whether students are interested in any of the
topics discussed.

Attend a public meeting – local municipality, county, or school board - and identify an interesting
local issue.

Remember that students can study any aspect of local government without its being necessarily a
controversial issue. Maybe students would be interested in library services and how they are
funded. They might want to find out more about the recreational facilities in the community.

These issues do not have to be problems; they may simply be aspects of the community that the
students want to find but about.
Other activities that you might want to use to develop a suitable topic are described below in detail.
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USING INTERVIEWS TO IDENTIFY ISSUES
Outcomes:
Upon completion of this activity, students will be able to:
 collect information about students' and adults' views through questioning, listening and note taking
 differentiate between issues under local control and state, national or world issues
 use a bar graph to communicate data
Materials:
 Student interview sheet
 Graph paper
Skills:






Talking
Listening
Note Taking
Analyzing
Categorizing
Graphing
Introduction:
In order to select a local issue which affects students' lives, you may want to have your students poll some of
the students in other classrooms in your school. You may also want them to talk to adults in the community to
find out what they think are the most important issues. To introduce the idea to students, model interviewing
skills with them. Show students how to phrase the questions to ask about important school or community
issues. Demonstrate how you would write down the responses to this question.
Directions:
1. Help students develop questions for their interviews. These questions should be open-ended so that the
responders aren't led to certain responses.
2. Have students interview each other in the class for practice. Use the student interview handout for them to
take notes. Have students practice maintaining objectivity in their interviews. In other words, tell them that
they should accept all responses without indicating that they don't agree with the person being interviewed.
3. Arrange for students to visit another class and interview three students there.
4. In small groups have students share the problems that were identified in the interviews. Ask students to
analyze the problems to determine whether they are problems under the control of the local governments
(municipal or school board). Have each group count the number of times each local problem was reported.
5. As a whole class, group the identified local problems into categories and list the number of times each was
reported. If students have interviewed different groups, they may want to consider the responses of each
group separately as well as together.
6. Have students rank the problems from the one that was reported the most often down to the ones that were
reported only once. If students are dividing the responses into groups, they may want to discuss why
certain groups would have different responses from others.
7. Create a bar graph showing the relative number of times problems were reported. If students have
interviewed different groups, they can create a different bar graph for each group represented as well as a
general bar graph representing all the responses.
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IMPORTANT ISSUES IN YOUR COMMUNITY
Name: ________________________________________________
Date: ____________________
Talk with three other students (or adults) in your school or community. Ask them what they think is the
most important problem in your town or in your school. Take notes here.
Person 1:
MOST IMPORTANT PROBLEM:
Person 2:
MOST IMPORTANT PROBLEM:
Person 3:
MOST IMPORTANT PROBLEM:
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WRITING LETTERS TO IDENTIFY ISSUES
Outcomes:
At the completion of this activity students will be able to
 write a descriptive letter
 identify positive elements of their community
 identify possible problems in their community
Materials:
 writing paper
Skills:
 writing
 observation
 analysis
Introduction:
One way to have students explore possible issues of interest is to have them reflect on what is positive about
their communities and what they would like to see changed. In order for them to look at their community
"with fresh eyes," they can try to describe it to someone who doesn't know it.
Directions:
1. Have students brainstorm what they like about their community. This can be done as a whole class or in
small groups.
2. Have students think about things that they would like to have in their community, or that they would like
to change about their community. Again, this can be done in small groups or with the whole class.
3. Ask students to write a letter describing their community to someone who has never seen it. This can be a
letter to a family member or a pen pal, or it can be a letter to a “made-up" recipient such as an alien
preparing to visit Earth. Urge students to use descriptive phrases and adjectives to make their descriptions
more specific and more easily visualized by someone who may have never seen the community. You may
want to have students work on these descriptions in groups and then put them together for a class letter.
For example, one group might describe the beautiful downtown area; another might describe the problems
with litter in the parks. These descriptions could be put together to create a class letter (a language
experience approach to writing).
4. Mail the finished letters (if possible) or post them on the bulletin board.
5. Examine the letters for community issues that the class might like to study.
Sample Community Letter Frame
Dear _______________,
I live in ____________________________________________
There are _____ people who live in my community.
The best things about where I live are:
Something I don't like is:
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USING NEWSPAPERS TO IDENTIFY ISSUES
Outcomes:
At the end of this activity, students will be able to
 use the local newspaper (or newspaper website) to identify community issues
 distinguish between issues under local control and state, national or world issues
 categorize news stories
 summarize news stories
Materials:
 current and recent local newspapers (more than one copy of each) or access to the internet
 scissors, paste, posterboard
 Is It Local Government? Worksheet (optional)
 Summarizing a News Story (optional)
Skills:





reading informational text
analyzing
categorizing
summarizing
sequencing
Introduction:
One way to have students look for issues of local concern is to examine recent and current local
newspapers or the newspaper’s website. Usually local newspapers, either weeklies or dailies, give
coverage of issues that are under the control of local government. Students can examine recent issues to
identify possible issues that they would like to study. This activity is particularly well suited to group
work so that each group identifies a different set of stories to evaluate.
Directions:
1. Have groups of students examine local papers for the last 2 or 3 months or go the newspaper’s website
and look through archived stories, looking for stories about their local community.
2. Have students determine which stories are about the same thing and cut out the related stories from
each of the newspapers so that they have an idea of how the issue has developed over time. (it helps to
have several copies of the paper so that when stories are cut out they don't ruin other stories.)
3. Have students analyze the stories to be certain that they fall under local government control.
4. Have students arrange the news stories in chronological order and summarize the events.
5. Have students paste the headlines sequentially on the posterboard with major developments in the
story summarized under them.
6. Have students explain their posters to other students in the class.
7. Students may then decide whether they want to study the issues represented on the posters.
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IS IT LOCAL GOVERNMENT?
When you are reading a newspaper article, look to see if it is about a local issue.
Ask these questions:
1. Is it about my community?
2.
Is it about my school?
3.
Does it talk about my community's local government?
4.
Does it talk about my community's school board?
5.
Is it about my community's parks?
6.
Is it about my community's safety?
7.
Is it about my community's roads?
8.
Is it about my community's businesses?
9.
Is it about my community's history?
10. Is it about my community's police?
If you answer yes to these questions, then the story is probably about a local issue.
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SUMMARIZING A NEWS STORY
News stories usually answer WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, HOW and WHY about the story. When
you are trying to understand a news story, you should ask yourself these questions.
Use this guide to summarize your news story.
HEADLINE:
WHO:
WHAT:
WHEN:
WHERE:
HOW:
WHY:
SUMMARY:
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