Student Experiences
Civic Spirit creates opportunities for students to engage in meaningful civic learning by providing spaces to collaborate with peers, share diverse perspectives, and practice the skills of dialogue, problem-solving, and collective action.
Civic Spirit Clubs
Civic Spirit Clubs are school-based, co-curricular clubs for middle and high schools that provide students with opportunities to meet regularly in-person and address local issues that are important to their community. Working with an advisor to develop a capstone project that they will present at the end of the year, students develop leadership skills, practice problem-solving, and build bonds as a group. High school students will also have the chance to connect with other students across our network, and learn from civic change makers across the country.
Civic Spirit Day
Civic Spirit Day brings together students from Civic Spirit schools to connect and work collaboratively to explore a topic or question related to civic life and design solutions to shared civic issues. Students from a range of religious, socioeconomic, racial, and ethnic backgrounds build relationships and practice problem-solving across differences.
America@250 Design Challenge
Middle and high school students are invited to design a new symbol for America at 250. Registered schools receive classroom resources to introduce the challenge.
Civic Spirit Camp Ambassadors
Our Civic Spirit Camp Ambassadors program expands our cohort model into experience based learning environments, understanding that students learn in a multitude of ways outside of the classroom. Camps are particularly impactful settings for civic education and engagement because of the community values at the core of the camp experience. Our offering is designed for camp professionals and staff committed to bringing civics into their programming this summer.
Past Student Programs & Civic Design Challenges
Civic Spirit partners with the entire school ecosystem in order to infuse civic learning opportunities through the school curriculum and culture. Below are past examples of student programming across our network of Civic Spirit schools.
Prayer for America
In partnership with public art luminary, For Freedoms, students were invited to use their creative voice to share their hopes for our country. Two students shared their prayers at the May 2019 Civic Spirit Day, and passages from all the prayers were assembled together to create a beautiful “digital mosaic” of the students’ voices.
Media Literacy Challenge
In partnership with The Flip Side, a digital project designed for remote learning asks students to analyze, evaluate, and communicate a civic issue from two opposing lenses.
Media Literacy Day
Civic Scholars from De La Salle and Luria Academy of Brooklyn convened to learn strategies and tools that support the analysis and evaluation of media. Each participant concluded the session by pledging to use at least one tool the next time they read their news feed.
Voting and Values
In partnership with Vote by Design and YVote, students across the Civic Spirit network examined what is required of a leader responding to crisis and how to reframe the decision-making process of voting around the qualities associated with effective leadership. Students created their own “Candidate Scorecard” to help them thoughtfully frame future listening and decision making.
Bridge to College
In partnership with Bridge USA, recent high school graduates joined a remote workshop to learn practical and actionable skills around civic engagement at their university. The workshop concluded with participants developing a concrete action plan for becoming civically involved on campus.
Professional learning and mentorship that equips teachers to cultivate civic minded classrooms and schools.
EXPLORE EDUCATOR PROGRAMS
