Public, private, charter and home school students will have a chance to participate in the upcoming Civics Bee to showcase their knowledge and and skills.
The Odessa Civics Bee is one of many pilot National Civics Bee competitions promoted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, the chamber’s website said. At least 1,000 local middle school students will participate in a first-round essay competition. Judges will select 20 writers to go to the final round: a live quiz event testing civics knowledge, held at 9:30 a.m. April 15 at UT Permian Basin. Winners will be recognized in their communities and receive prizes.
The National Civics Bee is presented by the Odessa Chamber of Commerce, with support from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation.
The essay topic is identify a problem facing your community. How might a citizen solve the problem? The essays should be 500 words, two pages and double spaced. More information is available on the Odessa Chamber of Commerce website, tinyurl.com/4a3heb7z.
Odessa Chamber/CEO Renee Earls said they will have a group of judges review the essays and choose 29 students to participate in the bee. The 20 students will then participate in a 90-minute civics bee and the winner will get $500 for first place, second place $250 and third place $125. All of this is funded through the U.S. Chamber.
Each finalist receives a certificate. A date for the national competition has not been set yet.
The students will get a tablet to answer questions with. The top three students from the local competition will then take part in the state competition.
“It’s a completely new project for us. We were very proud to be selected for this. I think it’s something that all of us can benefit from and I’m excited to see their essays,” Earls said.
Students may enter at tinyurl.com/2bwbncpu and the deadline is Feb. 24.
Earls said the chamber was approached to apply for a grant.
“One of my colleagues in Brownsville was one of the Texas chambers. In fact, it might have been one of the only Texas chambers that participated last year. I got an email that they were taking applications through the U.S. Chamber for other chambers to participate. She talked about her program and I just thought … that sounds like a pretty cool project. Then I had a call with the U.S. Chamber and got some more information,” Earls said.
She filled out an application and Odessa was selected as one of five chambers in Texas. There are 51 total chambers in the U.S. who are participating. This program through the U.S. Chamber (so) it’s pretty turnkey for us. It also intrigued me because I think this is something that adults can certainly benefit from, too. They really don’t teach much about civics as part of curriculum anymore and I told the US Chamber when they were interviewing me for this grant that I was excited to have the students participate. That’s wonderful. But I also think as adults, we can learn a lot from this as well. So their parents, I believe, can be a big part of this program, too,” Earls said.
She’s hoping that the experience will plant a seed in the students to become part of an elective office, encouraging volunteerism and showing how issues get solved as people work together.
Earls added that she has sent letters out to principals and superintendents with middle school students to let them know about the bee.
“We were very proud to be selected for this, and again, I think it’s something that all of us can benefit from. I’m excited to see their essays,” Earls said.
She added that the topic is very timely.
“It just goes to show … that every community has issues and it takes a group of people pulling together with ideas to solve issues. Hopefully we can get some good answers from our middle schoolers to help us solve problems that adults seem to have issues with. … Sometimes … they don’t see things as obstacles that adults do. … It’ll be exciting to have fresh eyes on this particular topic, and this was again chosen by the U.S. Chamber; not us,” Earls said.
