Project Community: Engaging All Students in Media Literacy and Public Policy will empower elementary and middle school students for effective and responsible civic engagement. The Center for Civic Education and its partners will develop and pilot a new set of lessons and teacher resource materials that integrate media literacy with hands-on public policy engagement. The new lessons will address challenges to accessing and analyzing reliable information in today’s media environment. Students will analyze media sources, organize policy information, and use media to responsibly inform others about policy issues. The new materials will integrate with the Project Citizen curricular program that engages young people in collaboratively proposing solutions to policy problems in their communities.
Reach
The new free lesson plans and educator resources will build the civic knowledge, skills, and dispositions of thousands of students and teachers across the nation! In addition, the project will provide high-quality teacher professional development and curricular support, reaching:
- 110 schools
- 220 teachers
- 5,500 students
Activities
With an American History and Civics National Activities grant from the U.S. Department of Education, the Center for Civic Education and its partners will achieve the following:
- Develop media literacy lessons and educator support materials for grades 4–8 that can stand alone and align with the Project Citizen curricular program
- Pilot the new lessons in teacher professional development and in the classroom
- Train mentor teachers and Project Citizen state coordinators in the new module
- Provide yearlong professional development to grades 4–8 teachers working with underserved students
- Disseminate the media literacy module to Project Citizen coordinators and education leaders in every state and the District of Columbia
- Engage underserved students across the country in the Project Citizen curricular program enhanced with the media literacy module
- Facilitate each participating class of students to present their policy proposal to their school or local community
Timeline
Year 1 (October 2023 to September 2024)
- Survey teachers on media literacy instructional needs
- Develop eight media literacy lessons for grades 4–8 students
- Pilot media literacy materials in Project Citizen professional development for 20 teachers
- Pilot media materials in Project Citizen classroom instruction for 500 students
Collect data on the pilot
Year 2 (October 2024 to September 2025)
- Annual professional development for 100 teachers
- Media materials used in Project Citizen classroom instruction for 2,500 students
- Each class presents a public policy proposal to their community
- Revise materials based on pilot data collection and analysis
Year 3 (October 2025 to September 2026 and beyond)
- Annual professional development for 100 teachers
- Media materials used in Project Citizen classroom instruction for 2,500 students
- Each class presents a public policy proposal to their community
- Release the Media Literacy and Public Policy module on a free, public webpage
- Disseminate new resources across the country
Partners
The Center thanks its Project Citizen state partners and its evaluation partner, the Civic Education Research Lab at Georgetown University, for their collaboration! State partners supporting professional development include California We the People; Kansas State University; King Kamehameha V Judiciary History Center, Hawaiʻi State Judiciary; Learning Law and Democracy Foundation in Minnesota; Maryland Council for Civic and History Education; Project Citizen Kentucky; Tennessee Center for Civic Learning and Engagement; University of Delaware; Virginia Civics; and West Virginia Civic Education Foundation.
Learn More
Contact your state coordinator to learn about Project Citizen in your state.
Questions about this project? Contact the Center’s programs team at programs@civiced.org.
