With a combined emphasis on collaborative research, service-learning, and leadership skills, students engage in activities designed to foster a richer understanding of the present lack of gender equity, the need for the Equal Rights Amendment and ways to educate others.

The students in the pilot program will create media, implement social media strategy of their own design and develop curriculum for younger students using their own research.

They will work in groups and complete weekly rotating field assignments for a period of 12 weeks in four key areas:

• Research
• Social media
• Video interviews
• Curriculum development

Professor Melanie Klein collaborates with ERA University Staff assigned to each of the areas listed. The ERA Staff are available to help students with technical aspects of media production, assist with social media strategy implementation, and supervise research and development. ERA Staff are also responsible for maintaining the student portion of the website. At the end of the 12-week period, each group will have covered each key area three times, building and promoting a slew of practical skills.

Groups will complete the following task in their assigned area each week:

1. Research:
Complete a series of designated research questions as related to the ERA. Each week will require a different set of questions to be researched, from the history of the ERA to which organizations and political parties have been in favor of the ERA to creating a list of resources that have discussed the ERA since the ratification deadline passed in 1982.

2. Social Media:
a)Promote the ERA Education website and Facebook page via social media platforms such as twitter, Facebook and Tumblr to allow as many people to access information about the ERA and the ERA Education Project.

b)Complete a blog post about the personal and collective experience of taking part in this pilot program; what have they learned? How is this process impacting their perspective? How are people responding to their participation in this project?

c)Research other successful social media campaigns, such as No H8 or Pepsi Refresh, and discover what made them successful and how this may or may not work in promoting the ERA Education Project.

d)Develop a social media campaign for the ERA Education Project.

e)Implement it with the help and guidance of ERA University Staff.

3. Video Interviews:

a)Interview boys and girls, men and women from a diverse range of racial/ethnic, religious and class backgrounds from childhood to adulthood to discover their thoughts about the ERA and issues of sex/gender equality. Do they know what the ERA is? Have they heard of it? Do they think it passed? Are men and women equal? Should they be equal?

b)Compress and upload video interviews to class site.

c)Share material with class; discuss and edit with ERA University staff’s help and guidance.

d)Use edited materials to educate others, with help from ERA University staff, through multi-platform dissemination including peer-to-peer presentations, social media posts, new media PSA’s and for inclusion in long and short form documentaries.

4. Curriculum Development:

a)Research any specific women’s history curriculum or lesson plans currently available for K-12 public schools. Which school? Public or private school? If public, which district? Research details of the curriculum.

b)Based on the research of curriculum in other institutions and the work done in the other 3 key areas of this pilot program, begin developing a national curriculum for the ERA Education Program.

c)Develop a curriculum that could be used during Women’s History Month in High School.

d)Develop a curriculum that could be used during Women’s History Month for Middle School.

e)Develop a curriculum that could be used during Women’s History Month for Elementary School.