Civic education empowers students to be active in communities
Students from seven school districts went head to head in a social studies competition that tested their knowledge of congressional acts, notable court cases, founding documents, treaties and amendments.
Representatives from the Bill of Rights Institute, the National Constitution Center and Fair Districts Pennsylvania also attended.
Chris Janson, the Bill of Rights Institute's senior project lead for civic learning initiatives, said he was inspired by the students' enthusiasm.
He told the students that civics education is not just about memorizing dates and reciting historic figures. It empowers citizens to be active members of their communities.
Students also presented civics fair projects that would improve the region's image. Among them were a project from Homer-Center School District students on addressing homelessness, which took first place; Greater Johnstown High School students' ideas for revitalizing the Hornerstown neighborhood playground; and Portage Area School District students' plans for building a pickleball court and expanding CPR training.
Mark Conlon, a Pitt- Johnstown professor and event organizer, described the bowl to Byers as bet- ter than his 'wildest dreams.'
And Portage teacher Tyler Johnson said, 'I think anytime we can get kids out of the building and engage them in those important subjects is a good way to show them how to take part in their communities after (graduation).'
We agree.
Pitt-Johnstown alum and Democracy Bowl donor Douglas Weimer is credited with helping to make the event a success with his generosity.
He said, 'It was a privilege to give back.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CBS News
23-06-2025
- CBS News
Retaliation from Iran likely to include cyber attacks, expert says
On Monday, Iran responded to the U.S. strikes on its nuclear facilities by attacking U.S. bases in Qatar. A local and national cybersecurity expert told KDKA-TV that they'll likely have a combined approach, which includes a cyber attack. The Department of Homeland Security issued a bulletin warning Sunday of the possibility of cyber attacks against the U.S. following the strikes on Iran. It's a key tool frequently used by Iran, which is one of our four main adversaries for cyber hacking. The potential for it to happen is very real, according to David Hickton. The founding director of the University of Pittsburgh Institute for Cyber Law, Policy, and Security said we need to be concerned. "Cyber attacking is probably, almost certainly part of their response portfolio," Hickton said. "When something like this happens, what you really watch for is the asymmetrical attack, the attack that doesn't really match up tit for tat with the attack that they received." In particular, Iran focuses on critical infrastructure, so our banks, the government itself, hospital systems, our transportation networks, including air traffic control, and our water supply, which the Municipal Water Authority of Aliquippa experienced back in the fall of 2023, from an anti-Israel Iranian group. Hickton also said we need to be watching for what's called a DDoS attack, which floods the market and makes everything inoperable. "You wouldn't be able to get to use your ATM, you wouldn't be able to use your credit card, you might not be able to get groceries," Hickton said. Thirdly, he's worried about ransomware and credential harvesting, which are used to steal money from bank accounts. "For people who live here, it would be a good idea to be at a heightened level of alert to take cybersecurity steps to protect themselves," Hickton said. Hickton said now is the time to ensure you have strong passwords and two-factor authentication, with a second check on security through a phone call. Also, don't click an attachment in an email without calling the sender to check that they sent you that email. Afterwards, Hickton said we'll need to see what happens and possibly worry about a type of attack that's hard to detect. "A latent attack, where we let our guard down because someone is parked in our system, and now they're ready to go," Hickton said. One positive for residents in western Pennsylvania is that Hickton said some of the best cybersecurity work to protect us is being conducted in our region.
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Yahoo
University of Pittsburgh named in lawsuit briefing supporting Harvard
In a briefing filed in the United States District Court of Massachusetts, the University of Pittsburgh is one of 24 named research universities that shared support for Harvard University in its lawsuit against numerous departments of the U.S. government. The briefing of amici curiae, or friends of the court, discusses the history behind the relationship between research universities and the U.S. government, as well as the accomplishments that have been borne out of federal funding being put toward research. 'The partnership (between research universities and the U.S. government) dates back to World War II, and it has fueled progress and underwritten America's position in the world ever since,' the briefing states. 'This research enterprise is one of the nation's greatest assets in the fight to maintain global competitiveness, and amici submit this brief to illustrate the magnitude of the harm that will result if it is compromised.' Click here to read more from our partners at the Pittsburgh Business Times. Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW
Boston Globe
08-06-2025
- Boston Globe
Marina von Neumann Whitman dies at 90; carved path for women in economics
'As a woman, she will be outnumbered on the council 2 to 1, but not in terms of brains,' the president said in the Oval Office with Dr. Whitman and her family by his side. (The council's other members at the time were Herbert Stein and Ezra Solomon.) Advertisement Dr. Whitman was an academic economist by training -- she taught at the University of Pittsburgh and later at the University of Michigan -- but she alternated her work in the classroom with extensive stints in the public and corporate sectors. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Before joining the Council of Economic Advisers, she had worked for it as a staff economist and then served on the president's board overseeing price controls. In 1979, she joined General Motors as a vice president and chief economist. She later rose to become group vice president for public relations, making her one of the highest-ranking women in corporate America at the time. 'One of the things about being an economist is that you seldom get the chance to practice your profession as well as teach,' she said in her own Oval Office comments, following Nixon's. Advertisement She was the daughter of mathematician John von Neumann, a polymath who developed game theory, made critical early advances in computer science, and played a central role in the development of the atomic bomb during World War II. He was one of several Hungarian Jewish emigres who worked on the Manhattan Project -- others included Leo Szilard and Edward Teller -- who came to be known, jokingly, as the Martians, for their intellectual brilliance and supposedly exotic personalities. In her 2012 memoir, 'The Martian's Daughter,' Dr. Whitman wrote that her father's immense intellectual accomplishments drove her to excel, especially as a woman in a male-dominated field like economics. Were it not for him, she wrote, 'I might not have pushed myself to such a level of academic achievement or set my sights on a lifelong professional commitment at a time when society made it difficult for a woman to combine a career with family obligations.' Marina von Neumann was born March 6, 1935, in New York City. Her parents, members of what she called 'the Jewish but highly assimilated haute bourgeoisie' of Budapest, had emigrated from Hungary in 1933, after her father received a professorship at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J. They divorced when Marina was 2. Her mother, Mariette (Kovesi) von Neumann, studied economics in college and later worked as the office administrator for a science consortium. After her divorce, she married James Kuper, a physicist who became a department chair at the Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island. Marina spent long stretches living with her father, whose Princeton home became a salon and way station for some of the country's leading intellectuals. Advertisement 'I was 15 before I realized this was not the normal American way of life,' she told The New York Times in 1972. The home, she added, was always filled with 'terribly interesting people and terribly interesting conversations.' She studied government at Radcliffe College, graduating at the top of her class in 1956. That same year, she married Robert F. Whitman, who was studying for his doctorate in English at Harvard. He died in 2024. Along with their son, Malcolm, a professor of developmental biology at Harvard, she leaves her half brother, George H. Kuper, and two grandchildren. Her daughter, Laura M. Whitman, an assistant professor of medicine at Yale University, died in 2023 at 59. Marina Whitman initially thought of becoming a journalist. But her first job after college, with the Educational Testing Service, ignited an interest in economics. She wanted to attend Princeton, but at the time, its acclaimed economics department did not accept female graduate students. Instead, she studied at Columbia University. After receiving her doctorate in 1966, she became a professor at Pittsburgh, where her husband taught English. They took leaves of absence in 1972, when she joined the Council of Economic Advisers, and moved to Washington with some intention of remaining there long term. But she resigned after just a year, disillusioned by the Watergate scandal that was beginning to unfold around Nixon. Dr. Whitman spent 13 years at General Motors. After she left in 1992, she taught at the University of Michigan's business and public policy schools. A lifelong Republican, she did not put herself forward as a feminist. But she did her part to prop open the doors she had gone through, for other women to follow. Advertisement 'There is a very small group of highly visible women who have now been offered a lot of boards,' Dr. Whitman told the Times in 1984. 'What has not developed as much as I hoped is going beyond that to a second wave. When I turn down offers, I sometimes have tried to suggest other women, but people do not react well to names they haven't heard before.' This article originally appeared in
