CIVIC LAB US0045 *Pass/Fail issued for grade*
(1 YEAR/0.20 Credit) Grades 9-12
Civic Lab aims to transform the school's mission into action by promoting active citizenship and civic engagement, providing space for building relationships and connections, advocating for social justice, and enriching our understanding of how systems of marginalization shape institutions and structures of privilege, advantage, and disadvantage in our history and in present-day society.
Each year has a different theme:
Grade 9: City as Ecosystem (Sustainability and Environmental Justice)
Grade 10: City as Community (Immigration in Chicago)
Grade 11: Social Reformation (Citizen and Community Activism)
Grade 12: May Term (Student-Designed Civic Projects)
In grades 9-11, students meet in their Civic Lab groups once every eight days and use the city as their classroom during five fieldwork days. Throughout these in-school meetings and fieldwork days, students read and conduct research on their central topic, meet with community activists, view films, and visit institutions. Frequently, students engage in action projects inspired by their work, such as gathering signatures, attending or organizing protests or consciousness-raising events, contacting legislators and decision makers, creating art, or presenting their findings in community forums.
In grade 12, students engage in a culminating Civic Lab project called May Term. May Term is a two-week immersion program at the end of May in which Parker seniors are excused from their regular classes in order to delve deeply into a passion project or volunteer opportunity. Deliberately placed at the end of the 12th grade year, May Term is designed to give students the precious experience of creating, developing, and succeeding in a meaningful project of their own design. These projects are structured to include an expression of gratitude to those whom they have learned from and an element of civic resonance that ensures that their projects reach and affect others. Students experience agency (through goal setting, revision, documentation, perseverance, and learning) and develop greater awareness of how they hope to impact the world and what they hope to pursue in life - professionally or otherwise. Projects are overseen by faculty advisors who work closely with the students to make their experiences as fulfilling as possible. Throughout the year, they meet once every eight days to design their project and learn from professionals who have used their Parker education to impact others. During May Term, they work independently on their project. And, on Sharing Day, they present their projects and share how they have grown and what they have learned from this unique experience.
