Quest teacher Mrs. Dolores Volpe posed with two of her Quest students and their completed campaign displays. On January 30th, the Stewart School fourth and fifth grade Quest students presented the results of a comprehensive unit of study, The Election Connection, to attending parents and classmates. The students' inquiry-based projects were the culmination of a semester's worth of study. "It was a great experience learning all about the presidential campaign and being a campaign manager! We got to make campaign slogans, buttons, videos and so much more! I just wish I could do it over and over again!" commented one Stewart student.

The inquiry-oriented theme had students examining 3 major components:

1. Be an informed citizen - the youngsters studied the process of presidential elections. They researched "election lingo" and examined the "Pathway to the Presidency" process.

2. Be an informed voter - the students identified presidential platforms and investigated the biographical data of each presidential and vice-presidential candidate by creating "political trading cards."

Stewart Quest students took a moment out of their busy campaign schedule to share banners headlining their candidate. 3. Be a campaign manager - Now that the youngsters were political experts, they were asked to apply what they learned about the election process by creating a mock political campaign for an historical figure or someone of importance who is living today.

Quest teacher Mrs. Dolores Volpe commented, "The students were required to select and research a candidate. They created political platforms based on their research. With the help of Mrs. Lauren Maguire, Garden City District staff developer, they created political advertisement videos using ANIMOTO - a web based program."

After sharing their campaign displays with attending parents, Quest students played the political advertisements they created on monitors in Stewart's computer lab.

Congratulations to all of Stewart's Quest students for a job well done!