Butler County 4-H News

Essay – Citizenship in Action

This year I got the opportunity to go to CIA, Citizenship in Action. It was held in Topeka and a lot of the activities were at the State Capitol.  I really enjoyed it. I knew that it was going to be a very new experience because I had never done anything like it before. I was right!  First, we started our time by writing a mock legislative bill. We got to chose between three bills:  free college, increasing the driving age, and having parents and guardians pay for extra curricular activities. I chose the group to write the bill about free college. Everyone was split up into either House of Representatives or Senators.  I was in the House of Representatives group.  We worked as a group to write our bill.   This part was very interesting because I got to see what it takes to make a bill. We started with many points and then as a whole group narrowed it down to only a few.  That night we went to the Capitol after it was closed and actually sat in the House of Representatives Chambers and went through a mock session. Most of our group were opposed to this bill.  We debated it and voted and it did not pass.  This was really fun and I really enjoyed hearing the different people’s points on the three bills. When I first got there I expected there to be more fun activities like camp or something because I had never to be anything  as serious as this. But, I really enjoyed it being serious.  I felt very professional.  But there was also fun.  After the mock session, there were options for a dance, a movie or swimming.   This was like something that I had never done before, I would highly recommend this experience to anyone.

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