1) Go over Final Project Requirements 2) Preliminary Activity/Follow-Up Questions 3) The Framework of Our Government 4) Bill of Rights: A Closer Look

 Answer reflection question for “Is Constitution Day ‘Constitutional’?” (due tomorrow)

Supreme Court Case Analysis- Reflection

 Directions: You have been given the following items:  - 1 plastic cup  - 1 dice  - 12 paper clips  In the next 10 minutes, develop a game using  ONLY these three sets of items. Have one person  in your group write down the “rules” to your  game on a separate sheet of paper.

 How challenging was it to create something brand new from “scratch” without any prior rules/regulations?  Why was it important to have “written rules” to the game you created?  Based on what you may already know, where can we find the written “rules” that our government has to follow??

The US Constitution: The “Rules” of Government

 US Constitution = HIGHEST law in the land  Designed to:  1. provide framework of our gov’t  2. list powers of our gov’t  3. list limits of our gov’t  4. list freedoms of US citizens

 Constitution is based on the idea of a limited national gov’t  1. Nat’l gov’t cannot take away the rights of the states  2. Gov’t power must be shared between federal, state, and local gov’ts

 National Gov’t is divided into three branches:  1. legislative – makes laws  2. executive – enforces laws  3. judicial – interprets laws

 Each branch has methods to prevent one branch from becoming too powerful  1. known as checks and balances  2. example: President can veto any law passed by Congress  3. example: concept of judicial review allows the Supreme Court to “cancel” any law it feels violates the Constitution

 Federalism = division of power between states and federal gov’t  1. states have reserved powers that are given to them by the Constitution that only THEY can carry out  2. example: sale of alcohol is regulated by the 50 states  3. Article 6: Federal law is supreme to state law (known as the supremacy clause)

 Bill of Rights  1. guarantees rights and freedoms of all US citizens  2. these are known as amendments or “changes” to the Constitution; allows Constitution to stay current with the changing times  3. an amendment must pass 2/3 of both houses of Congress and then ¾ of all 50 states to be added One of the original copies of the first 10 amendments to the Constitution

 Should the federal government be able to tell the schools that they MUST teach the Constitution on or around the 17 th or do you feel this violates the 10 th amendment of “reserved powers”?