Civic engagement is not just concerned with identifying societal and political structures. It is also concerned with how young people understand themselves as civic agents capable of starting and sustaining change. Seeing students as change makers is a civically engaged goal supported by literature surrounding the aims of art education in K-12…

Brown v. Board (1954) catalyzed a nationwide effort by the federal judiciary to desegregate public schools by court order, representing a major achievement for the U.S. civil rights movement. Four decades later, courts began dismissing schools from desegregation decrees in a staggered fashion, causing their racial homogeneity to rise. I leverage…

In this reflective essay, the author addresses fellow educators and their responsibility to students on issues surrounding the ongoing struggle for civil rights. She links the integration of Little Rock, Arkansas schools in 1957 with the 2018 student protest against gun violence following the Parkland, FL mass shooting. As a facilitator of…

This study investigated newspaper coverage of Florida red tide blooms in four metropolitan areas of Southwest Florida during a 25-year period, 1987-2012. We focused on how journalists framed red tide stories with respect to environmental risk, health risk, and economic risk. We determined risk to be a key factor in this news coverage, being an…

The issues surrounding the federal budget, national debt, and budget deficit are complex, but not beyond the reach of young students. This study finds scant treatment of the federal budget, national debt, and budget deficit in high schools today. It is hardly surprising that high school teachers spend so little time discussing these topics in…

Secondary students learn to deal objectively with domestic issues and problems in this quinmester elective course. Emphasis is upon providing students with an opportunity for indepth study in critical thinking on current controversial issues, using activity units as a principal teaching technique. The objectives are for students to identify and…

Designed as a pre-requisite for other quinmester courses in the politcal studies cluster, this course of study for grades seven through nine, aims at providing the student with basic knowledge about Democracy, and an understanding of the rights and responsibilities of each citizen to make a Democracy work. Course goals are for the student to: 1)…

This course of instruction, intended as an elective course for grades 10 through 12, is one of a series of curriculum guides revised to fit the quinmester administrative organization of schools. The principal goals of the course are to: 1) motivate students, soon able to vote, toward participation in the American political process; and, 2) teach…

This elective course of study for grades seven through nine is part of a total effort to revise curriculum to fit the quinmester administrative organization of schools. The intent is to equip students to meaningfully analyze current events. Emphasis is placed on understanding the complex underlying political, economic, racial, and religious causes…