Democracy Dash

By teacher Clare Labowitch

“Civics can be fun” is the verdict of Darwin High School’s Legal Studies students from Years 10, 11, and 12, as well as three classes of Secondary Intensive English Unit (SIEU) students, after competing in teams in a “Democracy Dash” within the School on Friday 25 May.

For two hours teams “raced” between stations learning, to their shock, that they had voted to attack New Zealand (corrupt governments and the Melaleuca Centre), learnt their rights if stopped for questioning by the police (NT Legal Aid), completed quizzes and word games which reinforced their understandings of how democracy works (Legislative Assembly), learnt about the differences between the three levels of government (City of Darwin), created a paper boat (Amnesty International), blew into breathalyser for the required time, something some students found quite challenging, (NT Police), learnt how preferences work when they undertook a voting activity (NT Electoral Commission) and learned about the services offered by the Darwin Community Legal Service.

Congratulations to those first to complete: Maya Picton, Isabel Henderson, Nan Khan Bo, Yu Ting Chen, Julia Jacob Limpo De Abreu, Jasica Jong, Rachel Fisher, Sofia Stefanidakis, Pia Bernadi and Rebecca Thorne but, to coin a cliché, and judging by the smiles during the event it would be fair to say, everyone was a winner.