On Thursday, around 50 St. Vrain Valley students gathered at the Longmont Museum to participate in Doing Democracy Day.
Doing Democracy Day is an event that allows students to form groups to wrestle with local issues. The students conduct research online and interview local leaders and experts to learn about the topic.
After conducting their research, students create an eight-minute presentation to argue the policy they created to solve the issue. The presentation portion of the event is also a competition in which students have the potential to win a medal.
The student groups are broken up based on their interest in local issues. There were six topics to choose from which included social media and mental health, vaping and bathroom safety, climate change and education, gangs and gang violence, affordable housing and homelessness and civic education and voting.
The goal is to take topics that local leaders wrestle with and find a solution that has a better chance of working.
The students learned how to ask questions and work in groups while handling difficult conversations before being broken up into their groups. They learned how to research their topics online and consult local leaders are resources.
