On Monday, Andrea Layzell’s grade four and five students at Bowen Island Community School (BICS) turned their classroom into a voting station, complete with electoral officers, scrutineers and ballot boxes. All students from grades 4 - 7 at BICS had the chance to vote through Student Vote Canada.
The students in Ms. Layzell’s class started the work of preparing to vote upon return to school after March break. They looked at the media coverage on the various issues and watched parts of the leaders debates.
“They also used the Vote Compass tool to determine where their values lined up in terms of left and right, and along party lines,” says Layzell. “We learned about the parties and their leaders afterwards, so some of the students were shocked to learn that their values didn’t line up with the party they thought they supported.”
The students also learned about the first-past-the-post voting system and considered the issues of strategic voting and vote-splitting.
The issues they deemed to be most important in this election were: LNG, education and housing.
After casting their ballots and allowing the grade sevens to vote in their classroom, the grades four and five students sat down to reflect on their first time casting a ballot.
People fought for the right to vote and everyone should take the opportunity to do it, said one student.
It would be disrespectful not to, another added.
In keeping with Elections Canada’s regulations, the results from the Student Votes Project in BC will be released following the release of the official election results after the polls close on Tuesday.
