The Florida Civic Fellows Program: Bringing University Civic Education Programming to High School Students to Develop Citizenship Skills

The University of South Florida St. Petersburg and the Florida YMCA Youth In Government program partnered to develop the USFSP YMCA Civic Fellows Program. Civic Fellows are Florida high school students who earn six college credits in political science and leadership for their participation in the program. This program, designed to improve civic education for high school students, is funded by a legislative appropriation (nearly $1,000,000 to date). The Lead Instructor of the Civic Fellows program will discuss curriculum development and implementation of this statewide civics education initiative (including the residential Civics Institute). Program assessment, including data analysis of the pre and post student surveys, will evaluate the