Civic Literacy / Branching simulation
City on the Record
Lead a fictional public project from the first hearing through the final audit. Residents remember your promises.
Four levels · Twelve consequential decisions · Included with educator membership.
City on the Record
Lead a fictional public project from the first hearing through the final audit. Residents remember your promises.
Learning goals, teacher guide & model limits
Goal: Explain how civic participation and public institutions shape policy, costs, and implementation.
Supporting course connections: CL.C&G.2: government roles · CL.C&G.3.1: civic participation. These identify practice opportunities, not full standards coverage, guaranteed learning gains, or official AP endorsement. Exact local pacing may differ.
- Listen before deciding: consult three authored NPC guides, complete the practical mission, and write a claim, evidence-based explanation, and limitation.
- A budget with limits: consult three authored NPC guides, complete the practical mission, and write a claim, evidence-based explanation, and limitation.
- The unexpected problem: consult three authored NPC guides, complete the practical mission, and write a claim, evidence-based explanation, and limitation.
- Public accountability: consult three authored NPC guides, complete the practical mission, and write a claim, evidence-based explanation, and limitation.
Use approximately one session per level, with time for discussion and revision. Actual playing and writing time has not been measured with students. Students can complete the mechanical actions more quickly; the explanation and comparison are part of the task.
An invented municipality, not a model of any specific NC city charter. Trust scores do not measure the worth of residents or political views.
Completion checks verify practical requirements and minimum writing length. They do not grade the argument. Review the portfolio for accurate concepts, specific evidence, reasoning, and limits. Downloads do not submit automatically to Google Classroom. A browser save is editable and must not be used as a verified assessment result.
Progress saves locally when available. Students can export and import a campaign file. On shared computers, export and then clear the campaign. No real financial, medical, political-preference, or identifying student information is required.
Compare two campaigns after exporting the first. Ask students to trace an early decision, a delayed effect, a later option, and the ending. The 0–100 resource indices and ending thresholds are invented teaching models. A desirable ending is not evidence that a political or personal viewpoint is correct.