Explo is pleased to announce Join the Debates in cooperation with the Commission on Presidential Debates and in partnership with PBS Education and the National Governors Association.

Curriculum Support For Student-Led Collaborative Discussions

Years after attending Explo, alums often vividly recall the dynamic conversations and debates of their Explo summers that made them think – and act – differently.

Explo is now helping to bring those discussions to schools and youth organizations by providing curricula and sample debate topics to educators working with students in grades 6 through 12.

Anyone who has had the opportunity to participate in thought provoking, lively, and engaging conversation and debate knows how powerful that experience can be.

The goal is simple. Teach young people how to run student-led, collaborative discussions on topics important to the U.S. presidential debates and election. Run these discussions once a week for at least six weeks, because learning how to engage in respectful conversation with those who think differently is skill that requires practice.

A Partnership with
PBS Education and the National Governors Association

To extend the reach of Join the Debates, PBS Education is printing Join the Debates posters and curriculum guides for a debate toolkit that will be sent to 15,000 teachers across the United States. PBS will also offer the materials on Election Central, their award-winning website. The National Governors Association is promoting Join the Debates, as is Letters to the Next President 2.0, a project of KQED and the National Writing Project.

Debate Host Sites Using Join The Debates Curriculum

The 2016 presidential and vice-presidential debate host sites – Wright State University, Longwood University, Washington University in St. Louis, and University of Nevada, Las Vegas – will use Join the Debates materials in their outreach with local public schools and youth organizations.

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“Anyone who has had the opportunity to participate in thought provoking, lively, and engaging conversation and debate knows how powerful that experience can be,” explains Moira Kelly, Explo’s president. “We’ve got some challenging problems facing us as a nation that elude simple answers. We need to listen to, and talk with, those who think differently if we hope to solve them. Through Join the Debates, I hope students come to appreciate vigorous and civil discourse as an important component of charting our future.”

To learn more, or to download the Join the Debates curriculum, visit the Join the Debates website: www.jointhedebates.org