Our Civics in Real Life series continues this week with our newest one on The Cares Act. This resource is intended to inform students about Congressional spending power while also asking them to think about how the exercise of this power during a crisis impacts their life today.

You can of course download all of the Civics in Real Life resources over on Florida Citizen for free!
As a reminder, our topics so far have addressed

Primary Sources

Federalism in Action

The Preamble in Action

Executive Orders

the Common Good,

and Public Health and the Social Contract.

Upcoming resources will include States Rights and Responsibilities, Symbolism, and Non-Governmental Organizations, among others. The second one this week will post on Thursday.

We hope that you will find these useful. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact us at anytime! And don’t forget, you can find the ‘Civics in Real Life’ resource on the Florida Joint Center for Citizenship website here. Be sure also to check out Civics360 for videos and readings that explore additional civics concepts and ideas within a more traditional framework!

Good news, friends in Civics! Happy to bring you some more video civics resources. For the past few weeks, we shared with you a collection of video lessons for learning civics from home, put together by the excellent folks in Palm Beach using some resources from Civics360. Five additional videos are now available. Each video runs about ten minutes long, give or take a couple of minutes. I’ve included a link back to Civics360 under each video.  These resources cover the impact of the 13th, 14th, 15th, 19th, 24th, and 26th Amendments, Significant Supreme Court Cases, Political Parties, and Evaluating Candidates.

Thank you, Lori Dool, for giving us a chance to support teachers!

Impact of the 13th, 14th, 15th, 19th, 24th, and 26th Amendments

Civics360 Module

Landmark Supreme Court Cases: Civil Rights and Civil Liberties
Civil Rights

Civil Liberties

Civics360 Module

Political Parties

Civics360 Module

Evaluating Candidates

Civics360 Module

Be sure to check out earlier videos in this resource collection! I’ve compiled them below.

Week 1 (Forms of Government, Systems of Government, International Organizations, International Conflicts)
Week 2 (Enlightenment Ideas, Impact of Historical Documents, Pursuit of Independence, Articles of Confederation)
Week 3 (The Preamble, Constitutional Limits, Federalists and Anti-Federalists, Rule of Law, Sources and Types of Law)
Week 4 (Citizenship, Citizen Responsibilities and Obligations, Bill of Rights and Other Amendments, Constitutional Safeguards and Limitations, Constitutional Rights)

Good news, friends in Civics! More useful tools from our friends in Palm Beach! For the past three weeks, we shared with you a collection of video lessons for learning civics from home, put together by the excellent folks in Palm Beach using some resources from Civics360. Today, we are happy and grateful to share five more. Each video runs about ten minutes long, give or take a couple of minutes. I’ve included a link back to Civics360 under each video. Thank you, Lori Dool, for giving us a chance to support teachers!

Citizenship

Civics360 Module

Citizen Responsibilities and Obligations

Civics360 Module

The Bill of Rights and Amendments

Civics360 Module

Constitutional Safeguards and Limitations

Civics360 Module

Constitutional Rights

Civics360 Module

We hope you found these useful, and thank you again to Palm Beach District Schools for sharing them!

Friends in civics, passing along this notice from the Florida Department of Education. If you are interested in helping to review the state of Florida’s K-12 Civics Standards, please consider getting yourself nominated by your district to do so. 

On June 26, 2019, Governor Ron DeSantis signed House Bill 807, which amended section 1003.4156, Florida Statutes, requiring the Florida Department of Education to complete a review of the statewide civics education course standards by December 31, 2020.

In accordance with Rule 6A-1.09401 of the Florida Administrative Code, the department is convening teacher experts for review of the K-12 Civics and Government Next Generation Sunshine State Standards (NGSSS) and is seeking two nominees from each district for consideration.

The department, on behalf of Commissioner Corcoran, invites you to submit the names of two candidates employed by your district for consideration to serve as a teacher expert. To ensure that the review process represents the needs of all Florida students, be mindful of providing candidates that are experts in the field, have experience with Exceptional Student Education, English for Speakers of Other Languages and Universal Design for Learning, with a minimum of three years teaching experience using the Civics and Government NGSSS.

Please use this online survey to submit one nominee for grades K-5 and one nominee for grades 6-12 by Monday, April 27, 2020. Teacher experts selected by the department will represent the many unique and diverse needs of Florida classrooms and will represent the district during the K-12 Civics and Government standards review. The Bureau of Standards and Instructional Support will contact individual nominees to obtain additional information to facilitate the selection process.
If you have any questions, please contact Michael DiPierro, Director of Standards, at
Michael.DiPierro@fldoe.org or 850-245-9773.

Friends, I know we are all seeking ways to ensure that our students, even ‘trapped’ at home, get a high quality civics education. Our good friends at the Constitutional Rights Foundation know this as well. They are offering free student driven webinars for elementary, middle, and high school kids that you can have your kids take part in that help them understand public policy, individual rights, and civic life. Check out the information below. I know I am going to try and get my own middle school child to take part! 

We are in this together. Our team is developing new resources in real time to help students keep learning at home.

Last week, we shared with you a collection of video lessons for learning civics from home, put together by the excellent folks in Palm Beach using some resources from Civics360. Today, we are happy and grateful to share four more. Each video runs about ten minutes long, give or take a couple of minutes. I’ve included a link back to Civics360 under each video. Thank you, Lori Dool, for giving us a chance to support teachers!

Enlightenment Ideas

Civics360 Module

Impact of Historical Documents

Civics360 Module

Pursuit of Independence

Civics360 Module One
Civics360 Module Two

Articles of Confederation

Civics360 Module

We hope you found these useful, and thank you again to Palm Beach District Schools for sharing them!

John Burkowski, Jr., a board member of the Florida Council for the Social Studies and an excellent Advanced Placement Teacher down in the Dade County area, shares these resources for helping your kids prep for the APUSH Exam through distance education! Check out the excellent resources below.

Suggested Plan of Action for Abbreviated 2020 APUSH Exam:

Plan accordingly with whatever remaining unit topics. Supplement with Jocz Productions / Adam Norris / etc. video reviews available on YouTube.

Use AP Classroom for review and practice questions.

CONTENT COVERAGE:

Focus your efforts on the Course Exam and Description key concepts.

JOCZ PRODUCTIONS:

APUSH, AP Government, and U.S. History videos for students, history lovers, and weird people on the internet.

CHECK THE WEBSITE
ADAM NORRIS:

Welcome to your one stop guide to all things APUSH, including textbook chapter reviews.
EXAM PREP:

Use AP Classroom through the Personal Progress Checks and teacher-built practice modules.

We will not know the format until April 3, so I recommend primarily focusing your FRQ section efforts on the SAQ 2. It is a primary source based SAQ that I believe would be the most efficient way to focus on all skills for any FRQ we get.

College Board will be adding video reviews for CED unit topics starting this week. Bookmark the playlist for reference and potential implementation.

Also, definitely do thesis development by using released DBQ and LEQ prompts; using Periods 1-7 prompts of course.

I have compiled publicly released Period 1-7 SAQs to use for planning and practice.

Shameless plug for my website for ppts and reviews. 

Friends, in this difficult time, I know that we are all seeking resources, so I am so very happy to share with you some resources that Palm Beach schools put together for broadcast over their cable system. They used our Civics360 scripts and materials for these four videos. Each video runs about ten minutes long, give or take a couple of minutes. I really think you may find these useful. Check them out! I’ve included a link back to Civics360 under each video.  We are grateful to our friends in Palm Beach for letting us share this with a broader audience. Every effort helps. This is what civics is about, my friends!

Forms of Government

Civics360 Module

Systems of Government

Civics360 Module

International Organizations

Civics360 Module

International Conflicts

Civics360 Module

In this time of uncertainty, as we look for ways to keep our kids engaged in their learning, to potentially teach remotely, and to keep on with our learning and our engagement as educators, citizens, and members of our communities, here are some resources that you can use online for both civics and other social studies subjects. As a reminder, if you are in Florida, be sure to follow the FDOE Twitter and website for information and resources as well.

Civics360 
Civics360 is a resource from your friends here at the Florida Joint Center for Citizenship that is intended to help students learn what they need to know to be knowledgeable citizens. It has readings in multiple languages (at a 7th grade level) as well as engaging 10 minute videos on a variety of civics topics. You can learn more about it here. 

The Civics Renewal Network

The Civics Renewal Network is a consortium of nonpartisan, nonprofit organizations committed to strengthening civic life in the U.S. by increasing the quality of civics education in our nation’s schools and by improving accessibility to high-quality, no-cost learning materials. On the Civics Renewal Network site, teachers can find the best resources of these organizations, searchable by subject, grade, resource type, standards, and teaching strategy.

The Civics Renewal Network is currently in the process of compiling a number of civics-related remote learning resources that we will be sure to share out as soon as it is up.

Free Resources and Apps
Many companies in this time of need are offering free or reduced subscriptions to educational tools and resources. Mary Ellen Daneels, a wonderful civic educator from Illinois, has helped to compile many of these into one location. I encourage you to explore this spreadsheet. Without a doubt there is something that you can use!

You will also find some excellent free resources here, and they have all been vetted by quality educators that have used them!

Resources for Teachers
These next resources have been compiled by the always excellent Joe Schmidt of the Maine State Department of Education.

 We hope you find these resources useful. We’ll be sharing more as we are made aware!