The Boys and Girls Club of Malibu and the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District are partnering to launch a project-based course where high school students “will create solution-based proposals for current real-world social injustices related to policing, education, homelessness, or the environment,” according to BGCM’s social media.
During the course, which starts on Monday, Jan. 11, students will pitch their proposals to “a local representative at the state level.” The course is also designed to help students strengthen their resumes and college applications and even build their own websites.
The eight-week course is completely online, with minimal coursework involved. There will be no quizzes or tests; instead students will do projects. They will meet once a week for 45-minute group discussions and spend “approximately one additional hour experiencing and reviewing the content and interacting with the course materials,” a representative of the Boys and Girls Club told The Malibu Times via email. Course instructors will be available Mondays and Fridays to conduct virtual student office hours. The instructors are Mrs. Ryan, the Malibu High School Librarian, and Violet Miehle, the Boys and Girls Club’s Teen Center Director.
The course does not cost any money. Furthermore, the Boys and Girls Club said they were “currently working with the school district and the Board of Education with the goal of making this a for-credit class in the 2021-22 academic school year.”
Interested high schoolers in grades nine-12 should email info@bgcmalibu.org to enroll.