APS Civic Education Initiative

The APS Civics Education Initiative Student Initiative takes the APS mission into schools and partnerships with teachers, students and administrators at both the high school and college level. The initiative includes a custom-developed high school curriculum focused on learning about misinformation, disinformation, and bias, and college-level internship opportunities that enable students to produce compelling and relevant programs on significant and difficult issues in our community.

Through this work, we communicate and reinforce the message that being capable of having fact-based, civil conversations with people who see issues differently is a worthwhile, and in fact, critical skill that forms the basis for our democracy.

The APS Civility Tool Kit, used at all APS programs and in the APS college and high school curriculum, was created to cultivate civil conversations among panelists and community members alike.

High School

At the High School level, we offer a custom-created learning series called “Reimagine the Square,” taught in the Fall at participating schools across the Kansas City community. What students learn in the Fall semester is then applied to a project-based learning (PBL) experience in the Spring semester, which gives all participating students the opportunity to work together to build their own APS style program.

A special thanks goes to our 2021-22 participating high schools:

Belton High School, Guadalupe Centers High School, Lee’s Summit West High School, Notre Dame de Sion High School, Oakhill Day School and University Academy High School

College

The College Level of our Student Initiative can be segmented into two opportunities:

Interns & Student Planning Committee

APS collegiate interns participate in and oversee the APS Student Committee, with support from the APS Civics Education Associate. Students work together to increase civic engagement throughout their student body by hosting events and offering their peers opportunities to convene and discuss pressing local, regional and national issues.

Summer interns partner with APS staff in hands-on work that spans a number of aspects of organizational operations, including marketing, program planning, development, and more.

APS Summer Intern: Lucy Brock

Lucy currently studies as an incoming junior at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where she is pursuing a double major in International Studies and Spanish. She is originally from Kansas City, Kansas, where she loves to spend time with her family and dog, Finn. She is so excited to be a part of the team this summer at American Public Square!

Past Student Programs