Middle school students throughout Virginia will have the opportunity to get additional civics education due to a new project by the Virginia Museum of History & Culture in Richmond.
The project, part of VMHC’s 250th Initiative, includes educational tools designed with significant input from Virginia educators at every level and will include lesson plans, interactive slides, classroom activities and the opportunity for onsite educators, subject matter experts and special museum experiences.
Civics Connects is born from years of related work by the VMHC and its John Marshall Center for Constitutional History & Civics.
Civics Connects will also include a series of video shorts that feature Virginia middle schoolers as civics investigators visiting the Virginia Capitol, VMHC and other important sites around the Commonwealth. The students also visited the National Archives and The White House.
Why Civics Connects is needed
- Only about one in three Americans can pass the U.S. Citizenship Test, which requires correct answers to only 60 percent of its questions, according to the Institute for Citizens & Scholars.
- Less than half of U.S. adults can name all three branches of government, and about one in four respondents cannot identify even one, according to the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center).
- Worst of all, about half of young Americans do not believe democracy is preferable to other forms of government, according to The Economist/YouGov.
Implementation
Against this challenging backdrop and in step with the educational opportunities afforded by America’s 250th, Civics Connects will provide Virginia students with a major new toolkit for inquiry-based exploration and discovery.
This first-of-its-kind educational resource portfolio will provide a foundation of civics, will cover all Virginia standards of learning for civics and economics in the middle grades and align with broader national standards.
“We are excited to offer a revolutionary new program that will equip Virginia students with a deeper understanding of civics, democracy and the responsibility of citizenship,” said Jamie Bosket, VMHC President & CEO. “The launch of this program is a momentous occasion for Virginia, as it puts the Commonwealth at the forefront of a national movement to prioritize civics education and invest in the future of American democracy.”
Throughout Virginia, units will be introduced throughout the year, beginning with America’s Founding Documents in July and paced to Virginia schools’ coverage of civics and economics content.
For more information, visit VirginiaHistory.org/CivicsConnects
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Crystal Graham
