Learning module:
Voting Defining Moments
Investigation 1: Choosing classroom leaders and pets
1.3 Let’s vote again
Life on white / Alamy Stock Photo
Scene 3: The same classroom…
‘OK, class, I did what you said, and you all voted and I didn’t punish anyone.’ (Clapping and cheers)
‘The new captain has been chosen on your vote. Congratulations to the winner, and it’s Max!’
(Loud cheers — ‘Yay for Max!’)
‘You have told me that you like voting so much that you want to vote for something else.
‘OK, well we always have a class pet each year. This year you will get to choose what the pet is.’ (Excited sounds, calls of: A cat! A dog! A budgie! A goat!)
‘You’re going to vote in two different ways and then we’ll decide which is the fairest way.
‘The first way is pretty simple — whichever pet gets the most votes will win out of dog, cat, budgie and goat.’
After the students vote...
‘The result is:
Cat = 8 votes
Dog = 9 votes
Budgie = 2 votes
Goat = 1 vote
Well done — so dog has won by one vote!’
1. What do you think? Was this way of voting fair? What do you like about it? Is there anything you don’t like?
‘OK class, before we definitely decide to have a dog as our class pet this year let’s try another way of voting and see what happens this time.
‘This second way of voting starts from where the first vote finished.
‘Remember the result of the first vote was…
Cat = 8 votes
Dog = 9 votes
Budgie = 2 votes
Goat = 1 vote
‘Under this way new way of voting goat loses and drops out and everyone votes again for the three remaining pets.’
After the recount...
‘And now the result looks like this…
Cat = 9 votes
Dog = 9 votes
Budgie = 2 votes
‘Take a look at that, cat is now equal with dog! So how do we decide who wins? Well as you may have already guessed, this time budgie drops out and everyone votes again for the two remaining pets, dog and cat.’
After the recount...
‘And the result of the overall vote this time is…
Cat = 11 votes
Dog = 9 votes
‘Cat has beaten dog by 2 votes! I really didn’t expect that after dog won the first vote!’
2. What do you think? Was this a fairer way of voting than the simpler highest vote wins method? What do you like about it? Is there anything you don’t like?
What happened next?
