Local government

City Councils

Who sits on a city council and how they decide what a city builds. Students pool a budget they cannot stretch, then argue a real problem in front of a student council.

Grades 3–5~35 minNonpartisan

Word document — open it in Word, Pages, or Google Docs and adapt it for your class.

This lesson plan teaches kids about City Councils and their role in civil administration, and the impacts they have on daily life and our communities.

01 Warm-up 5 min

Warm-up question (5 minutes): If you could add one new thing to your city (amusement park, zoo, arcade, etc.), what would you add? Why would you add that?

    • Have the kids share what they would and why for about 3 minutes
    • Transition by explaining how a group of people, called the city council, makes these additions and other important decisions throughout the city and the places we live
02 Lecture 10 min

Lecture: Slides Presentation (<10 minutes)

    • General overview:
      • Introduction: Explain what city councils are and what they do.
      • Specifics: Explain who makes up a city council, and provide a brief overview of each role.
      • Significance: Explain why city councils are important and the role they play in our society and lives.
      • End: Explain to them that their voices matter to the system and how they can get involved in it.
03 Games 2 activities

Game 1: The Great Budget Debate!

    • Divide the class into small groups of 4-6 kids each.
    • Give each group in the class 3 tokens of the same objects. These objects can be anything, as long as they are all the same and distributed evenly across groups, 5 per group. These ‘tokens’ represent the city’s budget.
    • Present all the groups now with 5 projects: Building a new road, expanding a new park, renovating the old police station, expanding the sewage system, and funding a new library. Each project costs a different number of tokens: the new road costs 3 tokens, the park costs 4 tokens, the police station costs 6 tokens, the sewage system costs 7 tokens, and the new library costs 5 tokens.
    • The aim of the game is for all the groups to debate and agree on funding at least one project, for which they will have to collaborate and pool their funds to budget and afford it. They will use what they have learned from the lecture in the process and gain a feel for what it is like within the city government and council.
  • Game 2: Council Pass!
    • Assign 5 kids to be the ‘City Council’ and everyone else to be the “Citizens’
    • Introduce a problem for the kids to solve: “The sewage system in the city has overflowed and been damaged, now there’s waste all over the city!”
    • Give ‘Citizens’ positions and roles to act and address their concerns and thoughts about the problem, for example, an elder who slipped and fell in the waste vs. a delinquent who enjoyed surfing and playing in it with his friends.
    • The student city council must listen to the arguments of members and citizens alike, discuss them publicly, and take an official vote on the best solution/law to address the problem.
04 Wrap-up 5 min

Wrap-Up Questions: (5 minutes)

    • Ask the kids what they have learned about city councils.
    • Then ask the kids what they learned about solving problems and working together.
    • Finally, ask the kids what they might do or say if they attended an actual meeting.