Civics Project Free Training & Curriculum Resources

Free Sample Units, Lessons & Teacher Reflections

• Facing History & Ourselves: Getting to Know the 10 Questions – This is designed to spark students' interest and help them think about civic engagement in terms of their own identities and passions. This lesson asks students to respond to that question, and then it introduces them to the framework as a whole.

• iCivics: Activate Civic Engagement - A graphic overview of iCivics resources on civics action projects - all linked from the graphic and available for free. They include materials to support the development of media literacy skills and to give background knowledge on such topics as state and local government and public policy.

• Generation Citizen: My Community Wheel Activity – Students begin by exploring their definition of community, what communities they feel a part of, and their roles and responsibilities as a community member.

• Generation Citizen: Consensus Building Activity – Students review the concept of consensus building and learn how consensus has features that are distinctive from “majority rules.”

• Teacher Assessment Sample: Root Cause Analysis – Students demonstrate an understanding of the systemic root causes of a community issue and explain the relationships between those causes. 

• Generation Citizen: Democracy Doesn’t Pause Lessons – Lessons for educators and caretakers to engage young people in student-led civics project activities during distance learning.

• Teacher Sample: Group Discussion Protocol – Group meeting responsibilities, structure, and norm-setting during student-led civics projects

• Teacher Reflection: My Civics Story - Teacher Civics Projects – Blog post from a teacher in Methuen recounting her experience implementing civics projects

Free Training + Curricular Resources

• Generation Citizen: Kick Start Action Civics – A free 5-hr self-directed and self-paced online course for teachers to receive initial professional development on implementing student-led civics projects in their classroom.

• Harvard Democratic Knowledge Project: Digital Civics Action Student Workbook – A student-facing Google Site that walks students through activities around the 10 Questions for Young Changemakers, an inquiry-based framework aligned with the six stages of a successful civics project

• Facing History and Ourselves: From Reflection to Action -- Readings and activities designed to support student-led civic action projects at middle and high school levels

• iCivics:  Civics in Action Projects Workbook – This new workbook provides a step-by-step/lesson-by-lesson guide for completing civics projects based on the DESE’s Six Stages. In addition to providing teachers and students with materials to determine a topic and research and carry out a project, it provides lessons on topics - such as working with websites, understanding public policy and many others -  that students need to understand in order to do a project successfully.

• Tsongas Industrial History Centers: Every Voice Counts – Curricular resources to explore how underrepresented communities have fought for equitable representation and overcome barriers to civic participation through primary documents and writing prompts. Also included is a series of webinars in which historians and educators share content on a civics topic and discuss how to adapt it for the classroom.