Government Lesson: Create a Federal Budget
Lesson Plan
1 hour 15 minutesGrades9, 10, 11, 12Civics, English Language Arts
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Written by Dan Castrigano, Lindsey Pockl
About this lesson
In this lesson, students explore long-term thinking, analyze federal spending, and design a government budget that balances present and future needs, culminating in a reflection and discussion on intergenerational responsibility.
Inquire: Students watch a TED video by Roman Krznaric called “How to Be a Good Ancestor.” It allows students to see sustainability from a future perspective.
Investigate: Students explore usaspending.gov and examine spending by federal agencies in the fiscal year 2025. In groups, students design a budget for the federal government. Some students represent people living now, while others represent people living seven generations in the future.
Inspire: Students reflect on what it feels like to represent those living now and those living seven generations in the future. Finally, students share, comment, and deepen each other’s ideas and opinions.
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Suggestions
- Students can have agency as to which group they’d like to represent: the present or the future. Alternatively, students can do both and then compare and contrast key differences.
- Students will most likely not be able to create a fully finished federal budget since this is not really a “finishable” activity. The main goal of this activity is for students to figure out the best way to allocate money to the major federal agencies. Teachers may need to determine clear stopping points.
- The Investigate section could be extended over two class periods, and the Inspire section discussion could take place on a separate day.
- Students can present their budgets in different ways, such as a formal report, an infographic, a debate, or a simulated government hearing.
- This lesson can be taught in conjunction with an ELA unit exploring Seventh Generation thinking in indigenous sustainability practices.
Prerequisites
- Teachers may want to offer graphic organizers, templates, or online tools such as spreadsheets with pre-set categories to help students organize and present their budgets
- The top 40 agencies by spending are included in the spreadsheet. The total (estimated) spending by all 40 of these agencies is $7,010,000,000,000.
- The numbers presented at usaspending.gov are messy. The attached spreadsheet rounds to cleaner numbers.
- Students may be missing some background knowledge. Be prepared to answer questions and/or do some research along with them.
- For example, some students might not know the function of the Department of the Interior.
- Feel free to use this site to look up the functions of the major federal agencies. These are one-sentence explanations.
- Note that one “agency” is simply called “unreported data.” That data is not made public. Students can simply leave that $104 billion alone.
Differentiation
- Students can focus on a different federal agency and then come together to combine their work into one federal budget.
- Groups can focus on one sector of the federal government, such as the Department of Agriculture, Education, Transportation, Defense, Infrastructure, Energy, etc.
- Students within each group can play different roles, such as environmental advocate, healthcare provider, economist, or future citizen, to help focus their research and budgeting decisions.
- Students who need extra guidance can be given curated data sets or simplified summaries.
- Students can wear armbands or robes to show that they are representing the future. Some physical representation of their role is a very powerful reminder of who they represent.
From the scientist review
This lesson asks students to analyze how the U.S. federal government splits its budget amongst all of the federal agencies. The website used to track the spending is routinely updated. This lesson has passed the scientist quality assessment.
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About the teacher writers
Dan Castrigano
Academic Teacher at Burlington YouthBuild
Dan Castrigano taught STEM and humanities at elementary, middle, and high schools for 11 years. From 2021-2023, he served as the Chief Content Officer at SubjectToClimate. Dan advocates for climate education and organizes for climate, social, and racial justice.
Lindsey Pockl
Lindsey worked with SubjectToClimate to develop accompanying materials for lesson plans for grades 3-12.
