by KYW's Dr. Marciene Mattleman

The involvement of young people in the election process has been very positive during the past few months; however, it has been noted that today’s youth are poorly informed about our government.

A recent survey conducted by the National Constitution Center revealed that more American teenagers know the star of the movie “Titanic” than the vice president of the United States. Fewer than one-third of adults can name the three branches of our government.
 
Sandra Day O’Connor, recently retired Justice from the US Supreme Court, believing that “Whatever adults learned in school didn’t seem to stick,” will make civics education her primary focus.

The Our Courts project being developed now at Arizona State and Georgetown Universities is designing online, problem-based civics learning tools for the digital generation with a database of lessons including text, video, audio and flash animation according to a description in Education Week.

The web-based curriculum will be available free to teachers and students starting in the fall and it’s already being sought by school districts that concur with the Justice.

For more details, visit www.ourcourts.org.