Project-based learning (PBL) is an instructional approach that provides civics, social studies, and American government students with the opportunity to actively and cooperatively engage with real-world issues and situations. Students typically identify a problem in their community or school, research the problem and policy-based solutions, consult with stakeholders, and develop an action plan. PBL has been lauded as a mechanism for imparting civic knowledge, dispositions, and skills. It can be a gateway to life-long civic engagement as it provides students with an invitation to take part in the life of their community, conveys knowledge of how the system works, instills an authentic desire to work for the good of society, and imparts the skills necessary for participation. Students can develop civic-related social and emotion learning competencies, such as critical thinking and collaborative skills, as well as facility with using STEM skills to address public policy concerns. The positive impact of PBL on civic learning extends to high-need students, including students of color and students from lower income households. At the same time, PBL is not without its critics who challenge its efficacy as a genuinely student-driven approach and argue that PBL requires substantial resources and can be difficult to implement in the classroom. The paper addresses the basic question: Is project-based learning for elementary and secondary school students an effective mechanism for fostering civic engagement? The study focuses on Project Citizen, a widely used curricular program of the Center for Civic Education. It will employ data from a three-year, large-scale national study of Project Citizen conducted by the Civic Education Research Lab (CERL) at Georgetown University from 2020-2023. The project used a randomized control trial (RCT) that compared teachers and students who took part in PC to those in traditional civics and social studies classes. Survey and qualitative data were collected. The findings indicate that students gained civic knowledge, dispositions, and skills from their participation in Project Citizen. The students who received the intervention made greater gains than those in the control group.