Project Citizen Maine State Showcase

For Immediate Release
May 14, 2008

Students Changing Policy: Students from around Maine Convene

Augusta, Maine: Students from across Maine will share their public policy projects at the 2008 We the People: Project Citizen Maine showcase on Friday, May 16, at the State House in Augusta, ME. The event is hosted by KIDS Consortium, the Maine organizer for the Project Citizen program, and the Maine Department of Education.

Students from Holden, Madison, Mount Desert Island, Portland, Sabattus, and Winslow have worked on public policy projects ranging from food safety to pollution. Friday morning, they will participate in oral hearings to share their ideas and solutions with one another and adult policy-makers. From 12:45-1:00 there will be a public viewing of their projects in the Hall of Flags at the State House in Augusta, ME. At 1:00, Beth Edmonds, State Senate President, will honor the participants and one exemplary portfolio, which will be sent to the National Showcase.

We the People: Project Citizen is a federally funded civic education program for middle grade students. It is a program that promotes competent and responsible participation in local and state government and enables young people to monitor and influence public policy.

Each participating class has worked for several weeks, first examining a local public policy issue by studying the impact of the problem on the community. Then, they evaluated alternative solutions to the problem, proposed an agreed-upon public policy solution, and finally, created a political action plan to enlist local or state authorities in adopting their proposed policy.

During the public viewing of projects at the State Showcase, each group of students will display portfolios and binders they have prepared highlighting their work and containing thorough documentation of their research. One portfolio from each state will be sent to the Annual Project Citizen National Showcase that is held in conjunction with the annual meeting of the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL).

Project Citizen is the most extensive education program in the country of its kind that teaches young people how to examine and influence the public policymaking process. The program aims to give students a hands-on understanding of their responsibilities as American citizens. Students are provided the opportunity to take an active role in positive social change.

Project Citizen is administered nationally by the Center for Civic Education in cooperation with the National Conference of State Legislatures, a bipartisan organization dedicated to serving the lawmakers and staffs of the nation’s 50 states and its commonwealths and territories. The program is funded by the U.S. Department of Education by an act of Congress. More than 500,000 students have participated in Project Citizen since the program’s inception in 1995.

Based in Auburn, Maine, KIDS Consortium helps transform classrooms and communities through an award-winning educational model that has touched more than a quarter-million students to date. KIDS assists teachers, administrators and community partners as they work with K-12 students to identify, research and address real community challenges - an approach known as service-learning. Founded in 1992, KIDS is a nonprofit organization that serves more than 40 school districts throughout New England. ###