IU government center receives $5.7 million award
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The Indiana University Center on Representative Government says it will use a new three-year, $5.7 million award to expand its expands its civics education and public service careers programming.
The nonpartisan educational center received the cooperative agreement award from the U.S. Department of Defense’s National Defense Education Program’s Civil Society program, which supports efforts to improve and innovate civics education.
IU said it will work with several other schools to develop and pilot a new VR tool called “Democracy Quest.”
Democracy Quest will serve to engage students to help them better understand how the government works, ultimately strengthening their civic skills and literacy. The app will intertwine Library of Congress materials with elements meant to boast creative thinking, research, inquiry, media literacy and real-life skill building.
“At a time when proficiency in U.S. history and civics among eighth-graders is declining, the IU Center on Representative Government, with the support of our nation’s government leaders, is addressing the need for greater civics education in a head-on and innovative fashion,” IU President Pamela Whitten said in a news release. “We are extremely grateful to the Department of Defense for its generous support of the new Democracy Quest project, which will help ensure students are fully prepared to participate in our democracy by expanding their knowledge of the core tenets of representative government, strategies for compromise and problem-solving, and critical-thinking skills.”
Since the Center on Representative Government was established in 1999, it has developed several tools consistent with the goal of improving civic literacy. It has previously received grants from the Library of Congress and the Annenberg Public Policy Center, which supported the development of free web- and app-based civics learning tools called Engaging Congress and Action Citizen. Those tools are used in around 3,000 classrooms.
The center will partner with Indianapolis-based and alumnus-owned Half Full Nelson, a design and game development company.