New Resources Transform Classrooms into Engines of Civic Engagement by Equipping Educators with the Tools They Need to Take Students from Learning to Leading

The Smithsonian’s Civic Education resource hub offers educators ready-to-use tools and inspiring stories designed to turn civic learning into civic action. Students benefit from guidance that can channel their concerns into meaningful expression and action that shapes the future of the communities in which they live.

As we enter the summer of our 250th anniversary as a nation, there is much to commemorate and celebrate. Civics is the foundation that supports our collective embrace of freedom, patriotism, and democracy. For many, civics evokes understanding how our government works, how bills become laws, and how they protect our rights. Civic engagement transforms this knowledge into action. Civic engagement looks like citizens understanding their communities, their neighbors, and what makes their places unique. Civic engagement means getting involved, dialoguing with others to glean their perspectives, and working toward community solutions that benefit all.

Young people care deeply about their communities too. Students have historically been on the front lines of change. Consider the actions of young people in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee during the Civil Rights Movement, or the contributions of youth in the Sunrise Movement to the dialogue around environmental protection. Yet according to a 2025 study by Tufts University, only 16% of young Americans think democracy is working for them. As champions of youth voice, how can educators bridge this gap, and help youth express their opinions effectively to create the communities they want to live in?

Civic Education at the Smithsonian is a new website that brings together six of the Smithsonian’s signature programs that foster civic engagement with youth. Each program, through its resources and pedagogy, centers youth voices in the discussion of community change. On the site, teachers and educators will find tested and ready-to-use lesson plans, activity guides with discussion prompts, microlearning videos, and more to build students’ skills in civic dialogue, in defining the communities they are part of and the issues they care about. These assembled resources show best practices in research, helping students explore historical case studies, objects, and oral histories to build well-founded opinions. To us, that is what civic engagement is all about: making informed decisions to create the world we want to live in.  

These resources and stories span disciplines, leveraging history, art, culture, and design to inform a full expression of civic engagement. On the site, educators can learn how National Youth Summits demonstrate effective strategies for linking the past to contemporary issues, and how the Designing for Change Toolkit helps students create action plans to address those issues. Using art and oral history, Creating Portraits of Community guides students in capturing the people and places that make their communities unique, and thus worth preserving. Educators will find guides and discussion prompts for using artifacts in the lessons of the Democracy in Dialogue Virtual Exchange Program, to catalyze discussions with students about the deeper meanings carried by the objects and archives around them. In the  Youth for Unity: Teen Changemakers program, Smithsonian educators share facilitation techniques for gathering multiple perspectives and encouraging student action in a myriad of ways, while Stories 4-History resources take a deep dive in teaching students how to incorporate primary sources and interviews with community members to form opinions. Whether an educator has a class period,  a semester, afterschool afternoons or a whole year, Civic Education at the Smithsonian meets them there with tools that can be used in any environment. Educators can easily follow the curriculum of a whole program, or mix and match resources and videos to fit their needs.    

What do students accomplish with these resources? Find your community on the Civic Education site’s story map, and dive into the stories of students across the country, making change in communities large and small. Across rural towns, urban centers, and hundreds of points in between from coast to coast, educators and students are using Smithsonian resources to change their communities in meaningful ways, taking part in creating that more perfect union embedded in our founding ideals.  

As Dr. Monique M. Chism, Under Secretary for Education at the Smithsonian, shares about American youth today, “their passion for justice, equity, and community well-being reminds me that the next generation is not only ready to inherit the world but eager to shape it.” We hope that Civic Education at the Smithsonian site inspires you to help students wield their transformative power as changemakers right in their own communities.  

Hear more from Smithsonian educators about Civic Education at the Smithsonian in two upcoming virtual sessions: 

• Wednesday, June 17, 2026 at 4:00 p.m. Eastern, "Fostering Civic Action in Youth." Register here. 
• Tuesday, July 14, 2026 at 3:00 p.m. Eastern, "We the Teachers: New Resources for Civic Education," at the 2026 Smithsonian National Education Summit. Register here. 

The Civic Education at the Smithsonian website received funding from the Smithsonian’s "Our Shared Future: 250," a Smithsonian-wide initiative supported by private philanthropy and created to commemorate the nation’s 250th anniversary and advance Smithsonian vision for the next 250 years.   

Jennifer Brundage | Read More

Jennifer Brundage is a Project Specialist in the Office of the Under Secretary for Education. There, she co-leads an outreach initiative to deepen the Smithsonian's collaborations with communities nationwide. Prior to this position, she served as a National Outreach Manager in Smithsonian Affiliations, and moved to Washington, D.C. after years as an educator at the Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum in New York City. She has a Master's degree in art and design history from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, and a Certificate in Climate Education from Antioch University. Brundage originally hails from Colorado, and is passionate about travel, lifelong learning, and all things outdoors.