From Inquiry to Action: Civic Engagement with Project-Based Learning

Date: September 8, 2016

Summary: Student civic-action projects facilitate project-based learning, while illuminating and supporting the incredible capacity of young people to work together to tackle problems and improve their community. Listen to our conversation with Steve Zemelman, author of From Inquiry to Action and director of the Illinois Writing Project, and Liz Robbins, the Chicago teacher whose work inspired the book.

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Excerpt from Show

Elizabeth Robbins on the need to engage youth in civic life:

It really is central that the expectations that we have of participants in our democracy, that they are not kind of given to people upon reaching legal majority, but that they have experience doing this work long before then. So it's not that when they become adults somehow they're relevant, but that they are relevant actors and players and participants and members of our society now, so what opportunities are we giving for them to dig in and do this work?"

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Related Resources Discussed on the Show

• "Issues to Action" Curriculum Guide for Projects
• Elizabeth Robbins' TEDx Talk on Action Civics
• Resources to Expand Letters to the Next President 2.0 into a Project
• Polaris Academy "Peacekeepers" Project Presentation
• Carnegie Corporation Civic Mission of Schools Campaign
• From Inquiry to Action: Civic Engagement with Project-Based Learning
• Steve Zemelman's Blog