Student Work Gallery

These projects come from courses I teach and are shared with student permission. Any inaccuracies in interpretation are my responsibility as the instructor, not the students’. The assignments are designed to be creative and lighthearted ways of engaging with political science concepts, encouraging students to explore ideas through humor, storytelling, technology, and play.

Creative Project

In both Introduction to Politics (POLI 101) and Global Politics (POLI 105), students complete a Final Creative Project in which they design something engaging to teach a political science concept to a general audience. Rather than writing a traditional exam or paper, students create short videos, podcasts, digital comics, meme collections, visual art pieces, songs, or other creative formats that communicate key course ideas in accessible ways .

Students may choose to focus on a real-world political issue or center their work on a specific theory or concept, but in all cases the goal is clarity, creativity, and analytical accuracy . AI tools are optional but encouraged for brainstorming or production support, and students are required to disclose how they use them. Full assignment instructions: POLI 101, POLI 105.

Realism and conflict_Pizza.mp4

G. Pizza — Video on Realism

This student created a short video to explain realism, focusing on the U.S.–China–Taiwan conflict. To avoid stock images, they used Fliki’s text-to-image and text-to-video tools, generating original visuals and syncing them with narration. While the process required extensive trial and error, the final project demonstrates how AI can be leveraged to creatively communicate core international relations concepts.

A. Maffei & N. Watson — The Great TikTok War

These students created a comic using Pixton to explore soft power, globalization, and national security through a playground allegory of U.S.–China tensions over TikTok. Watson scripted the project panel by panel, while Maffei designed the visuals and revised the artwork collaboratively. The influencer characters represent soft power and cultural diffusion, while a scene involving teacher intervention highlights cybersecurity and data protection. No AI tools were used in the project’s creation.

M. Byrne — Video on Duverger’s Law

This student produced a video introducing Duverger’s Law and showing how it operates in different electoral systems, including the U.S., U.K., and Canada. They used Splice video-editing software to combine narration, recorded footage, and election materials. Although no AI tools were used, the project drew on multiple academic and media sources to present the theory in an accessible format.

Duverger’s Law_Byrne.mp4

L. Puchalski — Storybook on Voter Fatigue

This student designed a children’s storybook to explain voter fatigue. The story follows a character who faces frequent referendums and grows increasingly disengaged. To illustrate the story, the student used ChatGPT’s image generation tools, sometimes with detailed prompts and other times allowing the AI to interpret the page text. The result is a playful but effective demonstration of how repetitive elections can diminish participation and interest.

Voter Fatigue.pdf_Puchalski.pdf

Heuristic Cue_Wilcox .MOV.mov

S. Wilcox — Skit on Heuristics

This student created a short skit to illustrate how people use heuristics as cognitive shortcuts in political decision-making. They used ChatGPT to draft the initial script, which was then expanded and adapted before filming and editing. The video concludes with an explanatory segment, reinforcing the importance of heuristics in shaping how citizens process political information.

Audio

T.Walter Loss and Damage in an Anarchic System

This student created a mixed-media art piece using pen, pencil, and Prismacolor markers, accompanied by an original audio explanation produced with Voice Memos and GarageBand. The project examines the Loss and Damage Fund introduced at COP27, connecting it to global anarchy and realist theory. Through both symbolic imagery and discussion of real-world climate disasters, the work highlights how self-interest and the absence of a global enforcer shape state behavior in international climate negotiations. AI was used only for early-stage brainstorming.

A.Sarvis — Collective Action and Cooperation Podcast

These students crThis student produced a podcast explaining the free-rider problem, the Tragedy of the Commons, and the Prisoner’s Dilemma. Drawing on course notes, he selected concepts he felt confident teaching and paired each with real-world examples to demonstrate how they operate in practice. AI was used to generate the podcast’s cover image, while the content and analysis were developed independently.

Collective Action and Cooperation Podcast_Sarvis.mov

V. Mc Caughley -IR Theories in Conversation

This student created a group chat-style project applying realism, liberalism, and constructivism to the Israel–Hamas conflict. She structured the conflict into ten key moments and scripted responses from each theoretical perspective to illustrate how they interpret the causes and possible resolutions differently. ChatGPT was used to generate text message-style graphics based on her outlined prompts and theory-driven responses, translating complex international relations concepts into an accessible visual format.

IR Theories in Conversation_Vanessa.pptx

Russo-Ukrainian War_Foyck.mp4

M. Fyock — Hard and Soft Power in the Russo-Ukrainian War

This student produced a video examining hard and soft power in the Russo-Ukrainian War, contrasting Russia’s military invasion with Ukraine’s cultural resistance. The project centers on a performance of the Ukrainian song “Ой, у лузі червона калина,” highlighting music as a form of soft power that affirms national identity and mobilizes global support. The audio was recorded independently and combined with war imagery using iMovie to connect cultural expression with broader political dynamics.

Comparative Politics – Bonus Meme

In Comparative Politics, students had the option to complete a bonus meme assignment for extra credit. Their task was to create a meme that illustrates a concept from the course. Students could use online meme generators or AI image tools, and they provided a short explanation of how their meme connects to the political science idea. These early bonus assignments introduce students to foundational ideas in comparative politics, such as the modern state, origins of statehood, and collective action, while giving them space to explore these concepts in a creative and accessible format.

This meme plays on the double meaning of the word “state.” Americans usually think of “state” as part of the U.S. union, while political science uses the term to mean a political entity. The meme captures the tension in this confusion through the classic “two buttons” dilemma.

This meme illustrates the concept of the tragedy of the commons, where individuals acting in self-interest overuse a shared resource to the detriment of all. By replacing “commons” with “comments” and depicting slow “community wifi,” the meme humorously shows how overuse depletes collective goods. (Created with an AI prompt)

This meme connects Thomas Hobbes’s theory of the social contract to contemporary humor. Hobbes argued that people gave up certain natural rights to form a state capable of maintaining order. The meme imagines this difficult trade-off as a Bernie Sanders–style campaign appeal, highlighting both the challenge of convincing people to surrender natural rights and the humor in translating a 17th-century idea into modern political language.

This meme addresses the concept of failed states, which often collapse into conditions resembling the pre-state “state of nature.” Since states are meant to protect against anarchy, the humor lies in the irony that when a state fails, it reverts back to an anarchical like society.

This meme draws on Charles Tilly’s theory that war-making and state-making are closely tied, with governments acting like organized crime groups that extract resources and consolidate power.

This meme highlights the common misconception between correlation and causation. Correlation simply means two events occur together, while causation means one directly produces the other. The humor comes from the visual metaphor of someone mistakenly thinking they are “moving the truck” (correlation) versus the person actually pushing it (causation).

This meme illustrates the free rider problem in collective action, where individuals benefit from shared goods or services without contributing to their provision. By imagining the social disapproval faced by a “free rider,” the humor captures the frustration communities feel when someone takes advantage without giving back.

This meme contrasts two classic perspectives on the state of nature. Thomas Hobbes, shaped by the turmoil of the English Civil War, viewed humans pessimistically and argued that only a strong sovereign could maintain order. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, by contrast, imagined people as naturally good and believed the state should reflect the collective will of its citizens.

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