It's been a very, very busy week in the Herons (and the school for that matter). We've had an uprecedented flood of campaign media. We've had a debate. We've had lunchtime/recess/anytime conversations. Many gourds have changed their minds then changed them again. For us as teachers, it's been very exciting to see the thoughtfulness with which students have been discussing the issues. Many have developed a pretty nuanced understanding of taxation and even health care.
Through all of this, the Herons have been keeping their collective
fingers on the pulse of the electorate through a series of polls. We had a great discussion about polls on Tuesday and the Herons quickly announced they wanted to survey the school. Initially, students thought we had to ask everyone who was voting but then we talked about sampling. They were excited to extrapolate (new word) the results of a small group so we wouldn't have to do so much work. We chose a sample size (5 per class) and talked about why we would want a random sample ("Well, people might just ask their friends and they might think the same way.) We wrote a neutral question (and had a chance to talk about push polls) and then collected our data and crunched our numbers.
As of Wednesday morning – the Poligourds were far ahead with 63.3% of the students, the Free Gourds had 23.3 % and 13.3 % were undecided. The pollsters wrote this paragraph to accompany the results when they were announced to each class:
Remember that this is just rough. Some Poligourds may have changed to Free Gourds, and some Free Gourds may have changed to Poligourds and some undecided may have made up their minds. REmember this is not worth yaying and booing. It probably won't change anyone's minds, it will just hurt their ears. Remember the candidates believe in friendly competition meaning that whoever wins don't be upset and don't yell out — if you do, that's hurting their beliefs.
Well, it was good that students were warned that things might change because the next morning, the feverishly campaigning Free Gourds had picked up 23% more points bringing them to 46.6 percent while the Poligourds were still in the lead at 53.3%. According to the poll, 0% were undecided. "But I'M undecided, I always have been!" said one student. The others worked to explain how this could happen. It was a great opportunity to share the idea of a "margin of error." No sample will ever be 100% predictive of the whole. We can use the information from surveys to see trends up and down and to make likely predictions. I assured them that asking 25% of students was a fair sample size. They were skeptical still — how could 1/4 of the group really tell you that much about the whole group?
The class could not believe that most of the polls that are reported on in the news are based on surveying just 1,000 people and that those polls are accurate to within 3-5% of what your results would be if you asked everyone. I drew a fraction of a fourth and then we attempted to conceive of a fraction of 1/187,000 (which is the ratio of average sample size to adult U.S. popluation). My dry erase marker was not up to the challenge. (There's a great article explaining how national polls are run and why they are accurate here.) While they are still skeptical about the national surveys they are more secure about the results of our own.
This morning we polled the populace again. The Free Gourds had pulled ahead slightly 48.6% to the Poligourds 40% — but there were 11.4% undecided. As O.F. pointed out as he announced the results, "It's still anyone's game!" I asked the class what had changed our undecided trend and they answered in unison, "The Debate!" Many of the students felt that "both candidates sounded good" at the debate and they left feeling more confusion (Cahty's written about student reaction to the debate here.)
This afternoon, they decided to poll one last time (unless we do an exit poll on Tuesday…) The tide had shifted once again (thanks to some very persuasive conversations at lunch and in the hallway during election work time) and the Poligourds had 48.6%, Free Gourds 40% and 11.4% undecided.
On top of all fo this work, the Herons are the primary organizers for the election. Two gourds had volunteered to plan and run the election and they orchestrated voter registration (no same day registration for us), making voting booths, creating ballots, signing up poll workers and planning how the election would work.
152 gourds are registered to vote. Will our polls be accurate? Tune in Tuesday to find out. (And feel free to stop by and check out voting, too — election monitors are good for a democracy, after all.)
The Rookery 
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