# Gerrymandering Game — Draw the Districts with Your Class

Source: https://decka.dev/classroom/politics-and-civics/gerrymandering-game

One town elects five councillors. Students draw districts for a fictional party, following the same rules on their phones. When drawing closes, compare the seats their maps produced and ask what makes a map fair.

## What it teaches

Explain how district boundaries can change which party wins seats while the households and their votes stay fixed. Distinguish a map that follows the rules from a typical map, and a typical map from a fair one.

## Explore gerrymandering by drawing the map

Gerrymandering means drawing electoral boundaries to favour a group. This lesson uses a fictional town so the class can examine the boundary choices directly: the households stay put, while the districts change.

In the default town, 25 households elect five councillors. Each district must contain five households joined side to side, and three votes win its seat. The phone checks the map against those rules. A valid map can still produce a different result from another valid map of the same town.

After drawing closes, the projector compares the accepted maps by seats won. The class investigates the results it actually produced; different majorities or a wide spread are possible, never guaranteed.

An exact reference counts every division of this fixed town that follows the same size and connection rules, counting each division once regardless of district names. Use that comparison to ask whether a result is common or unusual. Rarity alone does not establish fairness, and the town’s two rules do not represent every constraint used in real elections.

## Classroom debrief

How wide was the room’s range of seat counts? If every map gave the same result, what would you try changing?

Which districts were won by a narrow majority, and which contained more votes than their winner needed?

What rule would you use to judge fairness? Would someone drawing for the other party accept it?

What does comparison with all maps that follow these rules tell you? What does it leave out?

Who should draw the lines, and what information should they be allowed to use?

## Gerrymandering game questions, answered

### What makes a valid map in this activity?

For the default town, all 25 households must belong to one of five districts. Each district contains five households connected side to side. The phone identifies incomplete or disconnected districts before a map can be handed in.

### Do the households move or change their votes?

No. Every map uses the same fictional households in the same places. Students change the district boundaries.

### Is an unusual map necessarily unfair?

No. The reference shows how often a seat result occurs among maps following the activity’s rules. Deciding what is fair needs a stated criterion; that is part of the discussion.

### Are individual maps named on the projector?

After the first drawing closes, the projector shows up to two accepted room maps: those giving Hill the most and fewest seats. If the results tie, it shows one map; with no submissions, it shows none. Mapmakers are not named, but students may recognize a map.

### Can I try drawing a map on my own?

Use the free district drawer to try the fixed example town. Its map stays in that browser session; starting a class gives students a fresh activity.

### How long does it take?

Allow time for two rounds of drawing and discussion of the results. You can close each drawing round when the class is ready; the lesson also gives each round a time limit.

## Run the lesson

Present the boards in PowerPoint and Decka. Students scan a QR code or open the session link to join from their phone browsers.