Students tackle national issues

Newspaper cartoons, videos about New Balance sneakers and original rap music were all elements of this year’s Project Citizen presentations at Valley Stream South High School, a program designed to teach students about public policy.

Project Citizen, a curricular program funded by the U.S. Department of Education, is coordinated by Peter Mastrota of the social studies department at South High. This year, Mastrota’s eighth grade honors class joined the juniors in Advanced Placement courses in creating solutions to make college more affordable, curb American dependency on outsourcing and end the dominance of two political parties at simulated hearings on June 7.

Mastrota said the inclusion of eighth grade students at the hearings this year was the first step in expanding the program in Valley Stream. He said he hopes an elective course can be created in the district that would allow students to focus on Project Citizen research and carrying out the suggestions offered in past years.

“I would really like to see this program grow. It keeps things real,” he said. “A lot of what we do in history class upstairs is make believe — we talk about what we would do if we were in a certain time or place. But through this program, they have to come up with real solutions to real problems, and our intention is that they follow through.”

The theme of this year’s program was “American Problems, American Solutions,” as students chose to focus their research on national concerns. They presented slideshows with multimedia elements to a group of panelists, including parents, teachers, Board of Education members and administrators including Interim Superintendent Dr. Richard Marsh. They asked each group questions to help them decide which presentation would be reviewed by the Project Citizen national committee.