Background: The University of Maine Stormwater Management and Research Team (SMART) program began in 2014 with the goal of creating a diverse science-technology-engineering-math (STEM) pathway with community water research. The program engages female and underrepresented minority high school students in locally relevant STEM research. It focuses…

This response to Peterson's (2014) "Nonviolent Action as a Necessary Component in Educating for Democracy" enlarges the discussion of the role of the teacher/educator in deciding whether or when it is responsible to facilitate the engagement of students in acts of nonviolent dissent. Ultimately it would seem that the most important of…

This essay is an account of student civic engagement in action. It stresses the vital role of environments in which students learn to be civic actors. The student experiences recorded in this account point toward a form of campus politics that places students in a role of coworker and cocreator, where they must negotiate differences and…

Student participation in real-world problems promotes "a sense of their own agency andcollective capacity to alter their neighbourhoods or communities for the better" (Smith, 2007).This paper describes student engagement in a two-week summer workshop conducted in June2016, where they used geospatial technologies and community mapping to…

This study investigated the disciplinary knowledge and nature of expertise among political science experts studying American political science. A comparison group of students who had completed an introductory undergraduate course in American political science also participated in the study. Numerous research studies have found that civics and…

Describes a Student Advisory Council which was established to address the problems of the Cottage Lane Elementary School (Blauvelt, New York) and its students. Contends that through this participatory activity, students are learning how to solve public problems. (SLM)

The landmark Civic Mission of Schools report of 2003 laid out an argument for the role of schools in promoting youth civic engagement and presented a range of promising ideas and practices to accomplish that. In this study we describe the civic engagement outcomes that Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) in Louisville, KY, has chosen to promote…

Research on African-American and Latina/o youth has been dominated by studies that focus on "problem" adolescent behavior. Typically, they explain youth crime, delinquency, and violence as individual pathological behavior or cultural adaptations stemming from social disorganization in their communities. This article argues for a more…

Depicts efforts by a second-grade teacher and her students to understand the complex issues of and interact within a community that they conceptualized, built, and lived in. The study examined how students gained civic competence and made informed decisions. The results show how students struggled to understand, cope with, and solve problems that…

This book illustrates the tools necessary to empower adults and children to help implement significant changes that will begin to eliminate some of the problems that plague the environment and threaten the legacy of a healthy, safe planet. The book tells how to turn creative ideas into action that can change laws, restore and preserve the oceans,…

Designed to aid middle school-aged students to understand better the problems illegal drugs pose for schools, and to provide students with an opportunity to come up with solutions, this illustrated curriculum guide helps students examine the problem of drugs in an imaginary school called Jackson Middle School. Students are asked to work with other…

This paper analyzes a study designed to determine if students understand the concept of democracy and can apply democratic principles. It also compares the study with related investigations conducted in Europe and calls for improved teaching to make the concept of democracy comprehensible. In 1974, 1,000 high school seniors in Pennsylvania…