It can be rather difficult to drum up interest in American government among elementary school children. The subject is often quite dry, at least for younger folks who haven’t yet found themselves drawn into the drama and the sport of politicking, who largely view suit-and-tie public service as an outdated and rather boring existence.
But there are a cast number of facets to government, and sometimes it just takes the right legislative niche to get them hooked.
That’s where one teacher in Washington State comes in.
As a result of a rather unique project, a class of fifth graders in Washington State successfully lobbied their local government to declare their county a “Sasquatch protection and refuge area.” The crytpozoological civics lesson was reportedly the work of students at Lincoln Elementary School in the city of Holquiam. According to their teacher, Andrea Andrews, the youngsters were initially tasked with researching the famed cryptid and determining “if Bigfoot was real and hadn’t been discovered yet, or that it was just a big bear and people had misidentified it.” This sparked something of a healthy debate within the class with opinions on the issue largely being split down the middle.
The project was a rousing success.
