Fore! To help visualize the process and the effects of gerrymandering, The Washington Post has created a mini-golf computer game that serves as an interactive data visualization of the pitfalls of the practice. This has us thinking about using seemingly unrelated topics to teach kids about news literacy. In this case, WaPo has chosen golf as a metaphor to help readers understand the concept of gerrymandering. Although we think this is a hole in one, we also have questions like:
Why a golf game? What demographic traditionally gravitate to this game?
Why did the Washington Post create a game instead of just writing an article about gerrymandering?
How does gamifying a potentially triggering topic (like gerrymandering) mitigate or amplify those triggers?
Source: Washington Post