This hour-long virtual professional development session (recorded) for social studies educators addresses the following questions  - and more:

• What is the relationship between controversial topics, problems, and issues?
• What are controversial political issues?
• What is the difference between an open and a settled issue, and an empirical and a policy issue?
• Why should we include controversial political issues in the school curriculum?
• What are key best practices about teaching young people to engage in discussions or deliberations of controversial political issues?

Presenter - Dr. Diana Hess, Dean of Education at the University of Wisconsin, co- author of The Political Classroom: Evidence and Ethics in Democratic Education ^[1] and author of Controversy in the Classroom: The Democratic Power of Discussion ^[2]

Host - Joe Schmidt, Social Studies Specialist at the Maine Department of Education