Face the Facts: Meaningful Conversations with Students on Voting | Student Reporting Labs

On October 6th, PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Labs, in partnership with the Poynter Institute’s MediaWise, hosted “Face the Facts: Election 2020 Youth Town Hall.” The virtual event was produced to engage students and first-time voters on how to be prepared and better informed ahead of the November elections. The livestream included different segments featuring young people that have been clipped for educators to use separately or all together to initiate conversations about civics, elections and the role of young voters in a democratic society. 

In this media gallery, student reporter Annette Rooney from Judge Memorial Catholic High School in Salt Lake City spoke with English teacher Nick Steffens about his first voting experience in 1998. First-time voter Josh McCuff from W.B. Saul High School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, learned advice on voting for the first time from his environmental science teacher, Greg Smith.

Use the videos, discussion questions , and activities provided to learn how to initiate meaningful conversations about voting with students.

Hosted by Amna Nawaz, senior national correspondent and primary substitute anchor for the PBS NewsHour. The event included special guests; Hari Sreenivasan, NewsHour senior correspondent and anchor for NewsHour Weekend, Savannah Sellers, NBC News and MSNBC correspondent and co-host of Stay Tuned, NBC’s twice-daily news show on Snapchat and Instagram, and Peter Hamby, host of Snapchat’s Good Luck, America.