Innovative program will bring America’s founding era to life for middle school students across Florida
Florida State University’s Institute for Governance and Civics (IGC) has been awarded a $1.7 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to launch the Founding Voices project, an initiative designed to transform civics education by engaging middle school students with immersive, historically accurate portrayals of America’s Founding Era figures.
Timed to coincide with the nation’s 250th anniversary, Founding Voices will deliver 100 in-school seminars over three years — 60 featuring live historical interpreters and 40 utilizing AI-generated interpreters trained on primary sources. The interactive seminar experiences, which will reach 40,000 students and their teachers across Florida, aim to foster a deeper understanding and excitement of American history, constitutional government, and the moral and political ideas that shaped the republic.
“We are honored to receive such significant support from the U.S. Department of Education,” said Ryan Owens, director of the Institute for Governance and Civics. “This grant will empower us to bring the debates, ideas and individuals of the American Founding to life for students, helping them connect with the foundational documents and the principles they represent.”
The Founding Voices project addresses the need for more meaningful civic instruction by offering a unique approach that integrates history, analytical thinking and civic identity.
Each seminar will feature reenactments of Founding Era debates, student-led Q&A sessions with historical interpreters and comprehensive teacher resources aligned with state standards. All materials, including teacher guides, will be made publicly available, expanding access to high-quality civics instruction statewide and beyond.
Founding Voices is rooted in research supporting interactive, inquiry-driven instruction and reflects IGC’s legislative mission to advance civic education in Florida. The project’s innovative design — combining scholarly rigor, interactive pedagogy and scalable technology — offers a national model for civics education in the Semiquincentennial era.
“Students often struggle to engage with America’s founding documents because they seem distant or abstract,” said James Shuls, principal investigator and project director for Founding Voices and Head of the Education Liberty Branch of the Institute for Governance and Civics at FSU. “Our approach humanizes the Founders and dramatizes their debates, helping students see these documents as living expressions of a dynamic, evolving republic.”
For more information about the Founding Voices project and the Institute for Governance and Civics, visit igc.fsu.edu.