170,000 students expected to cast ballots in largest-ever Alberta Student Vote campaign
Even though they are under the voting age, more than 170,000 elementary and high school students from throughout Alberta will have an opportunity to consider the future direction of the province and vote for the official candidates running in the general election.
Student Vote is an authentic learning experience that enables teachers to bring democracy alive in the classroom, and empowers students to learn about government and the electoral process, and debate important issues facing the province.
This year’s program included a focus on developing news literacy skills in the digital age. The integration of NewsWise resources, encouraged students to learn how to fact-check online information, assess the credibility of sources and become more critical consumers of information.
A total of 1,347 schools have registered to participate in Student Vote Alberta 2019, representing all 87 provincial electoral divisions. A map of participating schools is available here.
“With 75 per cent of all elementary and high schools in the province participating, this is the largest Student Vote program held in the province to date,” said Taylor Gunn, President of CIVIX. “The response from Alberta educators, and their students, has exceeded our expectations once again.”
On or before April 15, students will take on the roles of election officers and coordinate the voting process for their peers. CIVIX will tabulate the results by electoral division and release them publicly following the close of polls on Tuesday, April 16 (8:00 pm).
The Student Vote project for the 2019 Alberta provincial election was made possible by Elections Alberta, The Alberta Teachers’ Association, the Edmonton Community Foundation, the Calgary Foundation, the Government of Alberta and the Government of Canada.
BACKGROUND:
Student Vote is the flagship program of CIVIX, a national civic education charity focused on developing the habits of active and informed citizenship among young people. Since 2003, CIVIX has coordinated 42 Student Vote projects at various levels of elections.
Other CIVIX programming includes government budget consultations with youth (Student Budget Consultation), coordinated visits between students and their elected representatives (Rep Day), a news literacy program for students (NewsWise) and professional development opportunities for teachers (Democracy Bootcamp).
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