University of Iowa Polling Project (July 6-10, 2009)

Last week, Mikva Challenge's Youth Safety Council and Teen Health Council went to the University of Iowa to work on a polling project with the University's Political Science Department.  The 28 young people of the two youth policy councils were University professionals for the week, and were coached by expert political scientists on every aspect of policymaking during the week-long experiential training.  The group was charged with polling 400 residents in the rural Washington, Iowa community, analyzing the data, and summarizing and presenting their findings to the Washington City Council. The project was designed as a way to develop the research skills of these young policymakers while at the same time gather informed opinions from Washington residents about their quality of life (data collected will inform new projects being considered in the City Council's 10-20 year plan).  This hands-on training mirrors some of the policy work these young policymakers are doing in their own field of research, and will serve as useful preparation for the councils' policymaking objectives this summer.

Check out local media coverage of this trip in the Burlington Hawk Eye and The Daily Iowan.

Beloit College Research Boot Camp (July 6-7, 2009)

Last week, Mikva Challenge's Education Council visited Beloit College to participate in a "research boot camp". The two day camp was designed to develop the leadership and research skills of the 14 member council, and to introduce these young policymakers to life on a college campus.  They spent the two days as University professionals, and after a series of interactive workshops about research collection and data analysis, these young policymakers demonstrated their improved research skills when they successfully summed up a complex piece of research into concise main points. 

The training from the expert researchers at Beloit will be useful as these young policymakers create their own recommendations for Chicago Public Schools' CEO Ron Huberman this summer. At the end of the boot camp, council members expressed that their time in Beloit helped them think more critically about how to develop a research question and the quality of different resources.  They left Beloit with a near complete survey regarding school reform which will be distributed to as many CPS students as possible in the next few weeks. But even more importantly they left with greater confidence in themselves and their extremely powerful roles as policymakers.

The Education Council just launched a blog to reflect on their summer experience, please click here to follow their progress.