AP government students had a bake-off assignment to deepen their understanding of the different stages of Federalism in the U.S. government two weeks ago.

“It was a hands-on, interactive experience that had students create and apply what they learned regarding the different levels/stages of federalism and legislative policy regarding that stage,” AP government teacher Ms. Laura Matthews said. “It is a fun and different way to evaluate and reflect on learning.  Having students create and apply and think outside the box makes them think critically. I believe individualized projects or application is a good thing; it embeds the content in a student’s brain, and makes in meaningful, plus, it is fun.”

In this activity designed to challenge the students’ minds, they had to connect and elaborate their key concepts to their cake representations.

“The stages of Federalism are compared and referred to as types of cake; and College Board AP uses these comparisons in relation to legislation and court cases,” Matthews said. “They want to have students link together the concept and the relevant example.”

In addition to working hard to create an accurate representation of a stage in federalism, students were offered the chance to vote for their classmates due to the creativity and tastiness factors of each other’s project and win extra credit for their work.

“I loved this [assignment and] I was beyond impressed with the student’s presentations,” Matthews said. “The time, thought and creativity from this group of kids has set the bar very high for next year’s bake-off.  I am proud of them, and as they all shared their masterpieces, students’ pride of work was so evident, and everyone appreciated each other’s effort. It was a nice class activity in that sense as well.”