This year, the school-wide theme for class names is "things that float." The students were tasked with coming up with a class name that met the theme qualifications and also was a good representation of their class. They were further instructed that they would be choosing the class name through a democratic process which included nominating "candidates," discussing traits and values, doing research, and presenting campaign speeches about the merits of their choice. The final decision was made by turning our classroom into a polling place for an anonymous and private voting experience (shown above.) In the end, there were two candidates on the ballot: "Whales" and "Otters." In a very dramatic count, the votes were dead even until the very last ballot... when the "Otters" won by a one-vote margin!