Rachel S., four-time participant in the Civics Fair and editor of Trinity’s newspaper, began her efforts with editorials and other opinion pieces to disseminate viewpoints about key issues in the presidential race. As president of the Young Democrats Club at her school, she also served as a grassroots organizer in the Obama campaign, but kept a nonpartisan spirit about much of the work on her Civics Fair project. Among other things, she engaged fellow students in voter registration, both in the school and at the Washington County Fair, and worked with her counterpart in the Young Republicans Club to create a public service video. She also organized students to attend a rally where President-elect Barack Obama spoke and another where former President Bill Clinton campaigned for Obama.

More than 150 students from nine Pittsburgh-area schools attended the fifth annual Civics Fair, which was held at the Senator John Heinz History Center. Greater Pittsburgh Student Voices is expected soon to provide a complete list of winning entries, to be published when it becomes available.

The Community Project category was one of six categories under which students could enter, but it was the only one in which the first place winner also was given a Jefferson Award for Community service. Other categories included:

• Op-ed, for which students published opinion pieces on current events
• Voter Education Material-Print, for which students developed printed works such as pamphlets
• Voter Education Materials-Other Media, for which entrants developed media ranging from videos, skits and murals to blogs, websites, Podcasts and Power Points;
• The Fourth Estate—which required students to track and analyze media coverage of an issue; political race or political advertising; or to examine the ways an interest group, such as a Political Action Committee or 527, uses the media.
• Voting Rights History, for which entrants developed projects relating information about when and how, women, African Americans or 18-21 year olds got the right to vote

Schools participating in this year’s Civics Fair included: Pittsburgh Brashear High School; City Charter High School; Fox Chapel High School; Highlands High School; Moon Area High School; Shaler Area Intermediate School; Springdale High School; Steel Valley High School; and Trinity High School.

A Pittsburgh Brashear student walks judges through website he created.

“Today’s students not only need strong academic skills, but also the idealism and competence to strengthen the social fabric and carry on our democratic traditions,” said Linda L. Croushore, Ed.D., Executive Director of the Consortium for Public Education. “The Civics Fair is a way of recognizing students’ passion for serving the community and participating in democracy.”

The Consortium was a collaborator in presenting the Civics Fair, along with Greater Pittsburgh Student Voices, the Pennsylvania Coalition for Representative Democracy and the Senator John Heinz History Center.

Panels of community leaders, business executives, media representatives and government officials will judge entries in all six categories.

Funding for the event comes from The Heinz Endowments and the Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands.

Steel Valley’s TFIM-Work Study Students Take Prizes at Civics Fair
The teams from Steel Valley display their certificates.

Two teams of Steel Valley students who participate in the Consortium for Public Education’s The Future Is Mine (TFIM) initiative and the school’s Work Study program won prizes last week for their one-minute video entries in the fifth annual Greater Pittsburgh Civics Fair.

With a video titled “It Affects Me” that illustrated how political issues hit home for youth voters, one of the Steel Valley teams took second place in a the Voter Education (Video Public Service Announcement) category. Another team took third place in the same category for “Open Your Eyes,” a video highlighting important political and social issues.

TFIM is a project-based learning program that fosters civic engagement while helping ninth and tenth grade students explore career opportunities.