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Health & Fitness

8th Grade Students Participate in Presidential Debates

8th grade students in the Social Studies classes taught by Nancy Giglio and Ron Vazquez participated in a series of mock presidential debates on Election Day.

Even though they are about five years too young to vote in this year's election, the 8th grade students in the Social Studies classes taught by Nancy Giglio and Ron Vazquez spent a great deal of time researching the two main candidates and their positions on important issues. On Election Day, they gathered in the SIS library to put their knowledge to use in order to participate in a series of mock presidential debates.

Student moderators had developed lists of questions based on what they determined to be the major issues to pose to their classmates. Teams of students had spent time researching the views and positions of the candidate they represented so that when debate time began, they were prepared to answer the questions from their respective point of view.

Mr. Vazquez noted that it was interesting to see which candidate the students chose to represent and how many of them ended up representing the candidate they didn't necessarily agree with personally.

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Fielding questions on the economy, health care, the environment, and foreign policy, the students were challenged to see the issues from both sides and to answer the questions in a way that would highlight their candidate's strengths.

President Obama and Governor Romney made a surprise visit to the debates with a little help from Mr. Vazquez and both were impressed with the entire process.

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