Center for Community Engagement & Service Learning: Student Section

Civic Coaching (Project Citizen)

The Center for Community Engagement and Service Learning collaborates with the Denver-based Center for Education in Law and Democracy (CELD) to expand a civic education program in select middle and high schools in Denver. CELD is the regional representative for Project Citizen, a nationally recognized civic education curriculum sponsored by the Center for Civic Education.

DU students from the Law School, undergraduate Living and Learning Communities and from service learning courses serve as Civic Coaches assigned to schools implementing Project Citizen. As Civic Coaches, DU students assist teachers and students in developing local community action research and service learning projects to complement the Project Citizen curriculum in the classroom.

Project Accomplishments

DU hosted a Summer Institute to train over 40 teachers from Denver along with a team from Eastern Europe on the implementation of Project Citizen.

DU Civic Coaches are working in 18 schools with these teachers to implement the curriculum in Social Studies classes.

Coaches, as well as K-12 students, indicate a greater awareness of their community and increase in academic engagement through this curriculum.

Working with 300 public school students for year one, and an additional 200 students for year two.

What is the difference between Project Citizen and Public Achievement?

Though in many ways similar, a few differences exist between Project Citizen and Public Achievement.

Public Achievement occurs only on Fridays and only at Bryant-Webster. Whereas, Project Citizen occurs at numerous schools Monday through Friday.

Public Achievement is youth-directed service-learning using Earth Force curriculum. Whereas, Project Citizen more specifically involves social studies curriculum and focuses on public policy.

CCESL provides transportation to Public Achievement sites. Whereas, CCESL may or may not provide transportation to Project Citizen sites, depending upon the arrangement with DU students.