Passport To Democracy | An active citizenship resource for teachers and students

Who wants to create change?

Young Voters

Teachers

Students

Students creating change

Passport to Democracy (PTD) encourages and empowers primary, secondary, and senior applied learning and VCE students to find their voice, and use it to contribute to positive changes for their community. The PTD resources provide a framework to help students choose an issue they are passionate about, research it and create a campaign promoting their issue. This process demonstrates to students the power in their voice and how they can, as active citizens, take part in our democracy.

Decide

DECIDE what issue you wish to address, find out who is responsible for that issue, and learn the ways in which you can influence these people.

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Research

RESEARCH your issue, critically read reliable sources, ask good questions, and learn the skills you need to effectively interview and learn from experts.

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Activate

ACTIVATE your campaign and take it to the people. Develop action plans, create campaign material, and make sure people get the message you’re delivering.

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Vote

Convince people to VOTE for your issue or campaign. Write and deliver campaign speeches, find out how elections work, and run your own election.

Let's start

Save planning time and explore active citizenship with your students using our free, curriculum-aligned resources.

Contact us for ideas on which of our lesson plans, activities, presentations or professional development will work for your school.

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Be The Change: a decision-making game that shows players how various active citizenship strategies can be used to achieve change in a democratic society.

Players are presented with a problem, they decide on their preferred solution from a range of options, and then choose which strategies they will use to influence the decision-makers. In developing and promoting their solution they need to convince the decision makers (the local council) that their plan has economic, social, environmental and community benefit, is practical and sustainable, and is supported by the local community.
Please note: this is an interactive that involves reading and decision making, and which allows for a variety of pathways to reach a final evaluation of your strategy.

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What’s going on?

Need some inspiration, or want to know what’s happening in the world of democracy and voting? Keep up to date by checking out the links below.

Fact check required! Critical Thinking Lesson Ideas for Primary and Secondary

The very idea of having ordinary citizens pose questions to politicians, journalists, media and political influencers, and other people of importance is a win for democracy.

Welcome

Read on to find out about our free resources, incursions and teacher development sessions!

Victorian Students’ Parliamentary Program

Discover the variety of opportunities currently available with the VSPP.