Pennsylvania Projects - Government of Pennsylvania by the Numbers

Directions: Use your online, research skills to obtain the information necessary to answer the questions.

1. How many Senators serve in the Pennsylvania General Assembly?

Compare that with the Federal government.
What is the ratio of the total number of federal Senators to the number of Pennsylvania Senators?

What is the term length for a Pennsylvania senator?

How many people does each Pennsylvania senator represent?

Name the Senator in the Pennsylvania General Assembly that represents you.

What is the salary of a Pennsylvania Senator?

What is the median income of households in your county?

2. How many Representatives are there in the Pennsylvania General Assembly?

Compare that with the Federal government.
What is the ratio of the total number of federal Representatives to the number of Pennsylvania Representatives?

What is the term length for a Pennsylvania Representative?

How many individuals does a Pennsylvania Representative represent?

Who is your Representative in the General Assembly?

How long has that person been serving in the General Assembly?

When will they be up for reelection?

What is the salary of a Pennsylvania Representative?

Which counties have the least and the most Representatives in the General Assembly?

Where in this range does your county fall?

Where does Pennsylvania rank, within the 50 states, for the size of its legislature?

3. Who is the chief elected official of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania?

4. What is the minimum number of votes, a piece of legislation must receive, to be passed in Pennsylvania state government?

Give an example of one important piece of legislation passed, by Pennsylvania government, in the past few years.

How did it impact your life?

Who was the largest contributor to your state representative and to your state senator? Followthemoney.org

Challenge: Examine Redistricting

Explain how district borders are decided in Pennsylvania.

How does this districting process affect Pennsylvania government?

Examine your Government's Demographic Statistics

The Capital of Pennsylvania WebQuest

Posted 4/11/2007 by Cynthia J. O'Hora This work is released to the public domain.

Save a tree use a digital answer format - Highlight the text. Copy it. Paste it in a word processing document. Save the document in your folder. Answer on the word processing document in a contrasting color (not yellow) or font. Please do not put them on the web because they will show up in a search engine making them like the odd question answers in the back of the math text. Or perhaps you have the resources to record verbal answers. If you do, be sure to first read / record the question. Then record the answer immediately after it.

Standards:

NCTE Standard 3 - Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts.
NCTE Standard 8 - Students use a variety of technology and information resources to gather, synthesize, and communicate knowledge.
PA Academic Standards - History, Civics and Government, Science and Technology, Reading Writing, Mathematics
ISTE Standard 3 - Technology productivity tools
ISTE Standard 5 - Technology research tools
Information Literacy Standards - Independent Learning
National Standards for Civics and Government