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PART 1 (Election/Engagement Component — about 75% of your grade)
FIRST, complete the gerrymandering strategy game (through Level 20) available here: GerryManderLinks to an external site.
The game is a little wonky — you’ll start simply, trying to make territories of 3 houses. It jumps to territories of 4 and then 5 houses/buildings without any explanation that I’ve seen, so if it stops letting you make groups of three, try 4, and then 5 when groups of 4 stop working.
Upload a screen shot of the last level you completed, up to level 20 (there are more levels beyond 20, but that’s what I did in a reasonable amount of time and was plenty to prove you get the ideas of cracking and packing.) If you accidentally go past level 20, just screen shot what you are on so long as it shows your current level. So if you accidentally move past what you need and end up on level 26. You can screen shot showing the 26 and I’ll know you had to go through level 20 to get there.
SECOND, make use of a district mapping program to draw Congressional districts for the state of Texas. My favorites mapping programs or websites are DistrictrLinks to an external site., Dave’s Redistricting SiteLinks to an external site., and DistrictBuilderLinks to an external site.. Each has pros and cons. I think Districtr is my favorite for students because it does NOT require you to create an account, and it is detailed without being too overwhelming.
Depending on the program you choose, there may be settings ready to go for Texas — but if not, Texas has 38 seats in the US House of Representatives. Develop a map of Texas that has 38 Congressional districts mapped out, where each district is approximately the same size. (Pro tip, each district should be about 767,000 people). For our purposes, no district you draw should have more than 850,000 people, nor fewer than 700,000 people. You should follow other laws — districts must be contiguous (connected) and the whole state must be covered. Compactness is appreciated, but not as enforceable as you might think.
To submit your map, zoom out to show me a good portion of the state (or even the whole state). Be sure you open the data showing your different districts and their population sizes, that’s what I’m looking for. Include as much of the relevant data as you can, but it may not all fit. That’s okay. Take a screenshot or a picture of your screen showing the map and data..
PART 2 (Public Opinion & Groups Components — about 25% of your grade)
Redistricting is about creating territories of similar population, and Madison suggests that the best districts are location-based communities — cities, counties, etc. with an eclectic mix of population. In the present, however, we have sufficient information to craft districts by other criteria and with particular goals in mind. When we craft districts for political or social motivations, we call that gerrymandering.
Make use of your district mapping program (or switch if you want, you do you). Develop an additional map for Texas using 38 US House Districts.
Your first map was to get familiar with the tool and the data available. Your second map must be a gerrymander. Since the Texas Lege has already provided us an example of a gerrymander designed mainly to benefit incumbents (and a bit to boost Republican representation), that’s the only thing you cannot design (Caveat: if you can find a way to pull more republican leaning districts than the approved maps, you may do so — they have 24 republican-leaning districts, beat that and you can do a Repub gerrymander and probably get paid nicely to do this as a career). Identify what group you want to boost — Democrats would be the easy flip side (it’s a game and not real, so you don’t have to feel dirty about helping the Libs… I won’t tell your peoples.) You can gerrymander to privilege based on race/ethnicity, or based on urban/rural. You can gerrymander to create close, competitive districts where both parties must really fight for the middle ground. The only real limitation would be the data you have available and that it is a population of enough people that it is possible to draw districts. Even if I have data of the whereabouts of every circus performer who lives in Texas, I’m not sure there are hundreds of thousands of them in the state — so I just don’t have enough of them to gerrymander them into a single district to elect the first real clown into Congress.
You must tell me your goal for your gerrymander, then you need to make it happen. IF YOU DO NOT TELL ME THE GOAL FOR YOUR GERRYMANDER, IT IS NOT ACTUALLY A GERRYMANDER! The mapmaking tools all have options like “Evaluate” or “Analyze” that will let you see data on how many of your districts would likely vote blue, or have an hispanic majority, etc. Whatever data shows your gerrymander in action is what I want open. Zoom in or out on the map to show it off how you’d like it to be seen. Take that screenshot! Ditto above — good faith attempts should get full credit. Exploring the Public Opinion elements and using the public data to produce your groups will net you credit on these elements of the rubric. Also please note that consideration for any “advanced understanding” ratings on the rubric will only happen if you complete a successful gerrymander.
If you aren’t sure how to screenshot with your device, please google it.