PA Civics Teaching and Learning Pathways

Each pathway is aligned to PA State Standards and represents a theme on the Roadmap to Educating for American Democracy designed by Educating for American Democracy (EAD). The pathways are designed to help you find high-quality educational resources in the many different areas under the civics content umbrella. Mix and match these resources to fit any age group and grade level from Pre-K to College.

The Pathways

  • This pathway is aligned to the “Civic Participation” theme on the EAD Roadmap.

    This theme explores the relationship between self-government and civic participation, drawing on the discipline of history to explore how citizens’ active engagement has mattered for American society and on the discipline of civics to explore the principles, values, habits, and skills that support productive engagement in a healthy, resilient constitutional democracy. This theme focuses attention on the overarching goal of engaging young people as civic participants and preparing them to assume that role successfully.

  • This pathway is aligned to the “Our Changing Landscapes” theme on the EAD Roadmap.

    This theme begins from the recognition that American civic experience is tied to a particular place, and explores the history of how the United States has come to develop the physical and geographical shape it has, the complex experiences of harm and benefit which that history has delivered to different portions of the American population, and the civics questions of how political communities form in the first place, become connected to specific places, and develop membership rules. The theme also takes up the question of our contemporary responsibility to the natural world.

  • This pathway is aligned to the “We The People” theme on the EAD Roadmap.

    This theme explores the idea of “the people” as a political concept--not just a group of people who share a landscape but a group of people who share political ideals and institutions. The theme explores the history of how the contemporary American people has taken shape as a political body and builds civic understanding about how political institutions and shared ideals can work to connect a diverse population to shared processes of societal decision-making.

    The theme also explores the challenge of e pluribus unum: forging one political people out of diverse experiences.

  • This pathway is aligned to the “A People with Contemporary Debates & Possibilities” theme on the EAD Roadmap.

    This theme explores the contemporary terrain of civic participation and civic agency, investigating how historical narratives shape current political arguments, how values and information shape policy arguments, and how the American people continues to renew or remake itself in pursuit of fulfillment of the promise of constitutional democracy.

  • This pathway is aligned to the “A New Government & Constitution” theme on the EAD Roadmap.

    This theme explores the institutional history of the United States as well as the theoretical underpinnings of constitutional design.

  • This pathway is aligned to the “Institutional & Social Transformation - A Series of Refoundings?” theme on the EAD Roadmap.

    This theme explores how social arrangements and conflicts have combined with political institutions to shape American life from the earliest colonial period to the present, investigates which moments of change have most defined the country, and builds understanding of how American political institutions and society changes.

  • This pathway is aligned to the “A People in the World” theme on the EAD Roadmap.

    This theme explores the place of the U.S. and the American people in a global context, investigating key historical events in international affairs, and building understanding of the principles, values, and laws at stake in debates about America’s role in the world.