Fairness and Apportionment II

The activities in this Pull-Out explore the Hill method of apportionment, the method presently used to apportion the U.S. House of Representatives. This Pull-Out is the second in a two-part series on apportionment and fairness.

Part I appears in Consortium 81. The two Pull-Outs can be used individually or together.

In Activity 1, students grapple with the concept of relative unfairness and define a relative unfairness measure.

In Activity 2, students learn that applying their relative unfairness measure to apportioning seats requires an enormous number of calculations. To cut down on the number of calculations, students derive symbolically an index based on their measure of relative unfairness.

In Activity 3, students use the Hill method to apportion seats in a hypothetical situation involving four states.

The last question is optional for students who have completed Part I. This question looks at the Hill method as a divisor method.