Election 2016

PBS Kids Launches Child-Friendly Election Website

• By Richard Chang
• 09/26/16

PBS Kids has launched a kid-friendly website for ages 6-8 that provides children with relevant, nonpartisan information through interactive exploration and video.

PBS Kids You Choose aims to teach kids about the presidential election process in an engaging and fun way, informing them that even though they are unable to vote, their voice still matters.

You Choose 2016 allows kids to:

• “Meet the candidates” and learn fun and important facts about them;
• Collect trading cards of past presidents and their spouses;
• Create a campaign poster digitally, using a new online coloring tool;
• Watch videos featuring favorite PBS Kids characters and new role models discussing democracy, election and government-related topics.

Younger siblings can also get involved in the conversation. Older children from middle and high school (and adults too) can turn to PBS LearningMedia’s new interactive Electoral Decoder, an adjustable timeline of presidential elections — since the first in 1789, where kids can run different scenarios to see what states a candidate must win to achieve the key number of 270 electoral votes.

All of the above sites and tools are free. These recent additions to the larger PBS Election Central initiative now enable entire families and kids of all ages to be involved in the presidential elections, which are Nov. 8 — less than 50 days away.