This first of three units of "Comparing Political Experiences", a first-semester course, provides 18 activities which introduce 12th-grade students to political system concepts that they will work with in-depth in succeeding units. The activities and readings, divided into seven sections, stress the development of political knowledge, intellectual skills, and participation skills. In part 1, students speculate about the meaning of politics from selected readings and a case study of political activity in a high school. Part 2 provides activities to sensitize students to the political events which occur regularly in their lives and to the political participant roles which are played regularly in groups to which they belong. Part 3 introduces and develops the concept of political system. Part 4 provides activities that introduce coalitional political systems and teach students to view political-system types as abstract models. Part 5 introduces the concepts of maintenance and change through a case study and a simulation. Part 6 studies the concepts of political development and conflict through a case study about presidential war powers and a simulation. Part 7 provides activities in which students take observer roles in groups to gather systematic information about political experiences. Each section contains the necessary student materials and student discussion questions. (Author/DE)