Kathleen Hauger, Social Studies Chairwoman, has used the booklet 26: Student Advocacy Kit in conjunction with Mary Rodgers’ Service Learning program to create a powerful experience for sophomores, juniors and seniors. Ms. Hauger has worked with students to create civic projects that involve art as well as other forms of student generated projects. She has worked with 2 students in particular to create school-wide initiatives based on the booklet 26 and civic engagement.   

One project describes how young people and adults use concepts from 26 to become change agents in their own communities and to solve problems. This project is organized as an 8 minute DVD that features 3 different civic problems. After each problem is presented the DVD is stopped and students are asked to discuss how they would deal with the problems presented to them on the DVD. The students are then shown the ways in which each problem was dealt with using the 26 template. This project was designed by a student to be used by classroom teachers to demonstrate what civic engagement looks like. This project was part of a student’s senior project. All Abington seniors must complete a senior project that is connected to community service.  

The other project was to create an on-line voting program that could be used by the school to not only ballot students on their choices for president, but for local elections, student council elections, prom and home-coming and student sentiment: This program is slated to be used district-wide. The program was written and is maintained by Robert Verderame, a student, who received financial compensation from the PennCORD stipend. The voting program will run on most every PA public school’s existing computer system. Students are allowed to vote only once and can vote from within the school on the school network or by logging in to the school’s network remotely.  

The Art department used part of the stipend to fund an existing program, The Memory Project, to make students aware of global poverty & food security issues. The Memory Project is a unique initiative in which advanced high school art students create original portraits for children who have been abandoned, orphaned, abused, or neglected.  To do this, the art students receive pictures of children who are waiting for portraits, and then work in their art classrooms to create the portraits.  Once finished, the portraits are delivered to the children, and the children are then invited to create drawings or write letters to send back to the art students. The children are from: Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Peru, Bolivia, Dominican Republic, and Haiti.   

State Civics & Government Standards  

5.1.12.C Evaluate the importance of the principles and ideals of civic life.

5.2.12.B Evaluate citizens’ participation in government and civic life.  

5.3.12.F Evaluate the elements of the election process.  

The 6 Promising Practices The Civic Mission of Schools offers six promising practices for civic education. Identify which practice(s) the proposal addresses by checking the appropriate box(es) below:    

X The project provides for direct instruction in government, history, law and/or democracy.    

X The project provides opportunities for students to discuss current local, national and international issues, especially those that young people feel are important to their lives.    

X The project provides opportunities for students to apply what they learn through performing community service that is linked to the formal curriculum and classroom instruction.    

X The project offers extracurricular activities that provide opportunities for students to increase their involvement in their school and/or community.