Civic Involvement

Learning to Make a Difference

How do you inspire kids to make a difference in their own community? CityWorks, a program of Constitutional Rights Foundation (CRF) in California, believes the first step is educating young people on local government, an area typically overlooked in high school government classes. To take this step, CRF created CityWorks, an interactive curriculum that integrates service as a way to learn. The course requires students to create and execute a service project to address a real community issue.

"The project must be a topic that students see as important, relevant,
and crucial to them.  It was interesting to watch students
generate ideas on the projects they wanted to take on."
- Cathy Lee, CityWorks teacher

A great, real example!
Seniors at Diamond Bar High School in Los Angeles County used the program to improve their school’s facilities. As prescribed in their CityWorks handbook, they began by identifying a real problem. They decided to focus on their school’s poor quality bathrooms (bathroom stalls lacked doors, toilets had no seats, there was a shortage of toilet paper, and the bathrooms were untidy). By making school bathrooms a more civilized place, they believed they could improve the daily lives of every student.

Understanding the problem
Through their research, students learned that part of the problem was neglect and/or disregard of the bathrooms: there was graffiti, broken toilet seats, and paper thrown on the floor. After surveying students to gauge their reactions and measure their interest in change, the CityWorks class met with the school principal to outline the problem as well as the solution. Cathy Lee, the CityWorks teacher at Diamond Bar, remembers that initially students were not confident they could accomplish their goal: "I don't think they imagined that the principal would be supportive of their idea.  It seemed like there were many obstacles for the plan to be successful."

Creating effective change
The school principal did listen and even vowed to work towards a solution. Within weeks, the bathrooms were refurbished — new stall doors, new seats, new supplies. To make sure the restrooms remained clean, CityWorks students created an awareness campaign and posted flyers around the school urging everyone to keep the bathrooms orderly. As a final step, the group made a presentation to the school board on the entire project.

"Students learned that age does not matter in making a difference if they collaborate, plan, and generate a solution… It is amazing how service learning brought Civics alive for my students."
     - Cathy Lee

The implications
This is service learning at its best, and there are many more examples! For instance, another senior in the CityWorks program worked with local city council as well as residents of his neighborhood to close down a dangerous alley. In every CityWorks project, students take learning out of the classroom, get deeply involved in a local community problem and follow a process to resolve it. CityWorks believes this kind of learning will help create tomorrow’s community leaders and hopes to roll out the curriculum in schools throughout the country.

"Students can do amazing things if we empower them."

     - Cathy Lee

For more information about CRF or CityWorks, please contact Katie Moore at katie@crf-usa.org.