Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and the Verizon Foundation have launched Civic Impact Challenge, a national contest for classrooms (grades 5-12) to help renew civic education and encourage civic engagement among youth. The contest involves using O’Connor’s online education project, iCivics, to teach civics to students and encourage them to be active members of the government. The students learn about their rights and responsibilities as citizens and are taught how the government functions.  

Civic Impact Challenge is open to all classrooms across the country and runs from October 3 to November 30, 2011. Students work as a class team to earn “impact points” by playing any of the 16 games on iCivics. The games feature topics covering citizenship and participation, the Constitution and Bill of Rights, budgeting, separation of powers, and the three branches of government. The classroom that earns the highest number of points will win a virtual visit from O’Conner as well as a VGo Telepresence Robot.  Once the contest concludes, students are able to donate their earned impact points to community projects run by youth in order to connect their civic education to real-world civic participation.