AP Annual Conference

In 2023, our Education Department shared the only student-led presentation at the College Board's AP Annual Conference in Seattle, where thousands of educational professionals discussed the future of education!

In our presentation, “Engaging Youth in Politics Through Discourse-Based Civics Education,” delivered by Mollie Guba, Mihika Chechi, and Isabel Epistelomogi, we introduced our discussion-based civics curriculum, which seeks to depolarize politics and foster greater civic engagement among young people. Our presentation detailed the history of YIP and the Education Department, our state-by-state research on civics education standards today, a complete breakdown of the curriculum and how teachers might incorporate it into their classrooms, and survey data from our data study recently submitted for peer review to demonstrate why this civics curriculum is so necessary. Teachers and administrators in the audience were highly engaged in our session, posed insightful questions after our presentation, and were eager to stay connected with us beyond the conference.

Throughout the conference, we had the opportunity to network with dozens of inspiring professionals, including directors of numerous College Board programs, leaders of various education-based organizations, teachers of all different AP subjects, and district-level administrators. Some of the most notable individuals and groups we met were Trevor Packer, Marco Learning, Heimler’s History, the National Constitution Center, BigFuture, and multiple publishing groups.

Our team was able to have in-depth discussions about potential collaboration opportunities with all of the individuals and organizations we met with - several partnerships and exciting initiatives are now in the works for the future! Further, many teachers and administrators were interested in becoming involved with the project as advisors on our curriculum Quality Assurance Committee or pilot schools for bringing our curriculum into physical classrooms. We cannot wait to see where these new connections lead us in the coming months.