Local Government Employees

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This lesson is most appropriate for High School classrooms.

Theme: Who works as employees of local governments, and what do they do

MCF Benchmark: Evaluate how effectively the federal government is serving the purposes for which it was created.

Other benchmarks this lesson targets include: none

Materials needed:

  • Computers with internet access
  • pencils and pens

For the teacher:

  • Michigan Local Government Structure, Services and Practices
    (Prepared as an informational resource for the MCI Local Government Curriculum Development Project) July 8-12, 2002 pages 7-14.

Methodological procedure:

(This lesson takes 2 or 2.5 45 minute class periods)

  1. Day 1: The purpose of today's lesson is for the students to gain a better understanding of who works at the local government level in the State of Michigan, specifically your community. This class should be held in a computer lab. Begin by distributing handout #1, 'A Diagram of the Michigan Local Government Jobs' and worksheet #1, 'Michigan Local Government Jobs.' See downloads section for the handout and worksheet.
  2. Tell the class this is a generalized diagram for the state, and the students will use both the worksheet and diagram to gain a better understanding of Michigan's government jobs before they look at their own local government's range of jobs. After completing this assignment, allow some time for class discussion. If computers are not available, students can use handout #1 to work off of for the next assignment.
  3. After the class has finished the worksheet, go to the computers and load up your local government website (City, Township, Village). If your local government does not have a web site, you can use the Royal Oak website (see website section). Each student should pick a job that he/she would like to research.
  4. Once jobs are assigned, hand out the 'Job Questionnaire' (worksheet #2) with questions regarding the student's job. The majority of class time can be spent completing the job questionnaire.
  5. Lead a discussion with the students on what they found out about their particular job. Ask questions such as: Do the students think their job is significant to the common good of the community? If so, how? What do they think about interaction among their position and other positions in the local government? If they could change something about their position, what would it be and why?
  6. The last five minutes of class needs to be reserved for describing and preparing for what will happen in the next class. The next class period will be a scenario based on a hypothetical tornado devastating their local community. Distribute the 'Tornado Strikes' (handout #2) to the students.
  7. Day 2: Have the classroom designed like a conference room. Arrange an area in front of the classroom where the leaders of the community would sit (Council, Mayor...). Rearrange the rest of the classroom in a semi-circle facing the front of the class.
  8. Students are to sit in their designated seats based on their jobs. The leader of the community begins by re-reading the tornado statement to clarify any misconceptions among the group.
  9. The acting leaders then begin a discussion of what they must do to preserve the safety and welfare of the community.
  10. One person from the class needs to volunteer to become the recorder who will write down the suggestions and solutions from local government persons. List about twenty suggestions, and then remind the class they are on a time constraint since it's beginning to become daybreak, and the citizens of the community who are unaware of what happened need to know if they should be reporting to school and their jobs for today.
  11. Tell the class they need to begin thinking about how they are going to inform the community of the situation.
  12. Break the class into groups by department divisions. For example, the Public Safety group might have a fire chief, a police chief and supporting individuals under them. Ideally groups of four will work best.
  13. As a group they are going to add information to the 'Damage List' handout (handout #3) from the disaster the tornado created. The group will then list other services that were impacted, specifically those services that affect them in their job positions. In addition the group will outline and describe how they will respond to this disaster. Allow approximately 20 minutes to work on this assignment. Time permitting, some additional questions that should be addressed are: Who are the other departments/groups/individuals that should be contacted? Should the American Red Cross be notified? How can volunteers be utilized? How and when should federal assistance be requested? Where will clean-up supplies and equipment be acquired from? Who is responsible to coordinate a disaster relief fund?
  14. After completing this portion of the assignment, one member from each group will present their damage list and other thoughts about their jobs to the front of the class. They will then allow the class to comment and ask questions to the group for about 5 minutes. This concludes day 2.
  15. Day 3: Begin the class discussion with a de-briefing of what happened in the simulation explaining how this could have happened to the local community. Use approximately 15-20 minutes to address questions and concerns about how the local government could have acted in this situation. Then end with the assessment.

Author's notes:

Assessment strategies:

To assess the student's comprehension of the lesson, have each student write a reflection essay focusing on the following questions:

During the disaster do you feel your position helped increase the safety and welfare of the citizens of the community?

Explain how you think it worked or did not work, by citing if you were able to work with other departments or not. Was there one particular job that was the most involved in this disaster? Were there any government jobs not impacted and therefore not involved in the disaster situation? If so, why? Was there confusion among people about what they should be doing? Do you think local citizens were satisfied with your effort? What are your thoughts on how government workers will have to work together to clean up and rebuild the community? If this became a real situation, do you think your local community of government jobs would be prepared to handle this?

Use the provided rubric to grade the essay (handout # 4).

Enrichment suggestions:

An extension can be used for Math when the students are reading the 'Diagram of the Michigan Local Government Jobs.' You can have the students interpret the data, using statistics (percents and ratios), to see the different jobs that are Volunteers, Elected, or appointed.

This links up to the Michigan Math Content Standard 2: Students examine data and describe characteristics of a distribution, relate
data to the situation from which they arose, and use data to answer questions convincingly and
persuasively. (Description and Interpretation)

Available downloads:

Suggested web sites:

  • Royal Oak City
    Here is the link to the Royal Oak City Government website to use as a guidline website for local government jobs.