The Parliamentary Education Office in Canberra is involved in the development of a number of innovative educational packages to support parliamentary and citizenship education across a broad range of curriculum areas covering the primary, secondary and tertiary education sectors. One package which has been developed over a period of more than two years is The Parliament Stack , a comprehensive computer based collection of readily accessible information about Senators, Members of the House of Representatives and Members' electorates. Challenging students to find out more about their political system and encouraging them to play an active role in it has long been a daunting prospect for teachers. Often the difficulty has been the lack of stimulating resources which might enthuse students and teachers alike to inquire into the political scene. The Parliament Stack is an attempt to bring together information about Senators and Members, their electorates, the latest federal election results, social-demographic information for each electorate from census data and much more.
Students enjoy using computers to investigate and solve problems.
The Parliament Stack taps into students' interest in computers and at the same time encourages them to examine interesting graphical and textual information about the political system. The presentation-quality graphical material in The Parliament Stack is instantly available at the click of a button. These materials can be used by students and teachers in any number of ways, spending as little or as much time as is required to suit the classroom needs of a particular investigation. Senior secondary classes can be taken through more specific data allowing detailed comparisons between electorates based on a wide range of socio-economic indicators, or analysing the latest election results in comparison with other electorates around the state and throughout the country. On the other hand, The Parliament Stack can be used as a five minute stimulus only to introduce a particular political, social, demographic or geographical concept.