Mrs. Kayla Watt, the AP Government teacher, created a fun baking activity for her students, known as Cake Day, to learn about federalism. 

Cake Day is a day (or two) of presentations done by the students in the AP Government class. Each student is assigned a Supreme Court case that somehow relates to the concept of federalism in the United States. Because federalism is sometimes described as either a “layered cake” or “marble cake”, the students can bake a cake for extra credit that displays the type of federalism their case would be classified as.

As for a lot of creative ideas, inspiration from other sources plays a factor for coming up with fun activities. Mrs. Watt said, “There are great AP learning communities on the internet that allow teachers from all over the country to collaborate. The initial idea for this assignment came from one of those learning communities. Like most lessons, it’s not a one size fits all type of thing. I adapted it for my own classroom.” 

Cake Day was a hit, according to AP government students. It was a great hands-on learning tool that involved eating a delicious treat afterwards. 

Senior Adam Kelly said, “I loved Cake Day . It was a great way to incorporate fun into the lesson. Cake Day really helped me understand federalism. My favorite part was seeing all the different decorations and how everyone had a unique cake.”

Creativity was definitely something most students liked. Two valuable lessons learned during this activity were bringing basic baking skills to life, and learning about federalism.

“Cake Day was such an amazing experience. I really enjoyed eating many cakes. Also I like how AP teachers around the world find ways to make learning government content fun,” Senior Daphnee Saint Juste said. 

The cakes were said to be delicious, which also made it an exciting experience for the students and Mrs. Watt. 

“I was super impressed by all of their baking and decorating abilities, and they also tasted very good. I’m not sure I would have been able to do what they did when I was in high school,” said Mrs. Watt.