ANSWERS -- Fun, Facts, and Trivia
November 2001 Issue

The Dirksen Center wants to help teachers teach better by giving them the opportunity to use technology to create, customize, and share online learning activities in their classrooms. The Center wants to help students learn more by bringing educational resources together in one place that provide new ways to learn about Congress interactively.

Are you policy proficient? Answer November's Fun, Facts, and Trivia questions.

Which policy is profiled? Pick one.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is one example of an agency engaged in shaping …

A. social welfare domestic policy
B. regulatory domestic policy
C. economic policy
D. foreign and defense policy
E. dietary policy

Do your students know the definition?

1- Cooperative effort of multiple legislators to connect together a series of personal projects and push them through the legislative process is a practice known as logrolling. (Link to answer and definition: http://www.congresslink.org/glossary.html#L)

A. agenda building
B. pork-barrel legislation
C. logrolling
D. policy formulation

Teachers, here's an activity to engage your students in some critical thinking:

The government makes decisions -- called "policies" -- just as people do. Although your students may not think of their behavior as a process, everyone has a method of making decisions. Have your students draw a flow chart representing the six stages of policy formulation: agenda building, formulation, adoption, implementation, evaluation, and termination. Then have your students draw a second flow chart beside it capturing the process that they usually follow when making personal decisions. Tell your students they will be used as an example when answering the following questions:

• How does a government differ from an individual when it makes decisions?
• Could the government's process be improved if it approached matters more as you do?
• Could your process be improved if you approached matters more as the government does?
• Are there factors of each approach that could be consolidated into a better method than either one?

Answers to October' s issue of Fun, Facts, and Trivia link here: (http://www.webcommunicator.org/funfactstrivia1001ans.htm)

Do you have or know of an online activity you would like The Dirksen Congressional Center to feature on its new Web site for students -- Congress for Kids?The Center is currently seeking online activities that provide new ways to learn about Congress and the workings of the federal government interactively.

If you have questions or suggestions for online activities, contact Cindy Koeppel .