UK College of Education course sparks passion for civic engagement  

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Dec. 23, 2024) — Aspiring teachers at the University of Kentucky are working to ensure their future students become informed and engaged citizens.

Elementary education majors completed civic action projects this semester, focusing on local issues they are passionate about, and earned the Kentucky Civic Seal — a designation they can help their future students earn, too.

Local and state leaders visited with the UK students in class recently and listened as they presented and reflected on the issues they selected, such as animal welfare, student housing/parking and safety issues on local roadways. 

“We want to show aspiring teachers the importance and value of civic engagement, in hopes it will ignite their passion for bringing this type of experience to their future elementary students,” said Laura Darolia, Ph.D., an associate professor in the UK College of Education who teaches the Elementary Social Studies Methods course.  

To earn the civic seal, the students researched their topic of interest and created action plans for addressing the issue. Their audience included several UK faculty members and representatives from the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council, CivicLex and the Kentucky Secretary of State’s office.  

“This project was a lot of fun,” said elementary education senior Justin Blankenship, who completed his civic action project on school bus driver shortages. “It gave us a chance to learn new things about our communities and it also opened our eyes to the ability to teach our future students ways to get involved with the community.”  

For this project, Darolia collaborated with Daniela DiGiacomo, Ph.D., associate professor in the UK College of Communication and Information’s School of Information Science; Carly Muetterties, Ph.D., a UK alumnus who works in civic education; and Stephanie Mobley, director of civic education for CivicLex.

“Information and media literacy was built into the curriculum for the civic action project,” DiGiacomo said. “Students learned more about how to consider the source, nature and purpose of information they found, as well as how to share their perspectives effectively. By making these connections now, we hope they will be inspired to bring high-quality civic learning, including information and media literacy skills, into their future classrooms.”   

The Kentucky Civic Seal is a program in partnership between the Kentucky Secretary of State’s office and the Kentucky Civic Education Coalition, an organizing arm of the Kentucky Council for the Social Studies. Earning the seal extends the strong civic emphasis within the current Kentucky Academic Standards for Social Studies. Whereas the standards’ emphasis on civic application of learning provides a foundation, the seal program is an opportunity for students to go above-and-beyond in demonstrating good citizenship.