Justice O'Connor Helping to Create Educational Video Games

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Apr 08, 2016
by Patrick Wilson
Justice O'Connor Helping to Create Educational Video Games

Retired US Supreme Court Justice and long-term Salzburg Global Fellow teaches middle school children how to Win the White House in new civics 

Former US Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor at a session in 1983 and the Cutler Lecture in 2012game.Long serving Fellow Justice Sandra Day O’Connor has helped create an educational video game.The game called Win the White House is an animated civics education game. The game has students taking on the role of imaginary presidential candidates during an election cycle. The students must learn how to compete civilly against opponents with varying view on political issues such as immigration and gun control.The game has been played by more than 250,000 students in March alone and its user base is growing across middle schools in the US.Despite having never played or even seen a video game, Justice O’Connor began engaging in interactive media after retiring from the Supreme Court in 2006 and started a nonprofit civics education group called iCivics in 2009.Since then the group has released 19 free online games as well as lesson plans that aims to give middle school students a more interactive learning experience into government and Constitutional processes.Teachers who have used Win the White House say the game has helped their students experience and understand the complicated trade-offs that candidates often make.Justice O’Connor said she started iCivics due to her concerns that many schools were no longer teaching students to become engaged citizens. She said she worried that students would not grow up to become good leaders, or even active voters, if they did not understand the importance of an independent judiciary or their right to due process.Justice O’Connor is a long-standing Fellow of Salzburg Global Seminar, attending her first session in 1983 - American Law and Legal Institutions. She is now a member of the advisory board to the Lloyd N. Cutler Center for the Rule of Law and hosted the third annual Cutler Lecture at the US Supreme Court.You can read the full article by the New York Times in which Justice O’Connor and her iCivics work was featured here and you can try out Win the White House yourself at this link.