Active Citizenry At its best!

Because the United States is a democratic republic, most of the decision-making and other work of government is accomplished by elected and appointed representatives.  However, it has been recognized since the founding of our nation that the preservation and healthy functioning of our democracy requires that citizens play an active role in what is ultimately a system of self-government.  For citizens to play such a role requires, among other things, that they:

The principal purpose of Project Citizen is to help students improve their capacity to participate competently and responsibly in the American political system. 

In addition to the requirements noted above, such participation requires that people have the capacity to track, or monitor, what their government is doing and to influence it on matters of concern to them.

Not all students are citizens.  However, it is important to be inclusive of all students, not just students who happen to be citizens. All have rights and responsibilities.

Project Citizen provides a practical, firsthand approach to learning about our complex system of government and how to monitor and influence it.  Students work together to conduct research in their community to discover problems they think their government are not handling at all or not handling well.  Then students select a problem from those they have identified and work cooperatively to

• conduct research on the problem,

• identify alternative solutions to the problem and weigh their advantages and disadvantages,

• propose a solution to the problem that requires government action and does not violate provisions of their state constitution and the U.S. Constitution, and

• propose an action plan they could use to influence the appropriate governmental agencies to consider or to adopt their solution to the problem.