Civics education

Fourth- and fifth-graders argued for whether the United States should elect its president through the Electoral College at a contest sponsored by the Rendell Center for Civics and Civic Engagement.

Rendell Center co-founder Gov. Ed Rendell announced the 4th and 5th grade finalists in the Lenfest Citizenship Challenge essay contest, this year on whether to eliminate or keep the Electoral College.

Only a quarter of Americans can name all three branches of government, the poorest showing on that question in a half-dozen years, a new survey on civic knowledge has found. The GOP presidential candidate was known to only 84 percent of the public.

Ellis Island, formerly the entry point for millions seeking a new life in America, will host the swearing-in of more than 300 immigrants as new citizens on Friday, Sept. 16, in one of many events celebrating Constitution Day.

For Constitution Day, Annenberg Classroom has released a video on the First Amendment and a free press and re-released another about civil liberties and the detention of Japanese-Americans during World War II.

The Philadelphia City Council has honored Judge Marjorie O. Rendell and the Rendell Center for Civics and Civic Engagement for their work in civic education, and credited its partnership with the APPC as well.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was an originalist in his approach to the Constitution. In a 2008 video for Annenberg Classroom, he and Justice Stephen G. Breyer discussed theories of interpreting the Constitution.

Yale University law and psychology professor Dan Kahan, and the former top news executive at WHYY/NewsWorks, Chris Satullo, have joined the policy center for the spring semester.

The Annenberg Classroom documentaries “Habeas Corpus: The Guantanamo Cases” and "Magna Carta," both released in September for Constitution Day, have been awarded prizes for excellence.

Hundreds of fourth- and fifth-grade Philadelphia-area students showed off their impressive knowledge of the Fourth Amendment's prohibition on unreasonable search and seizure at the Rendell Center's Citizenship Challenge.