Design Challenge Event
On December 3rd, students from Horton, Topeka, and Lyndon High Schools traded their textbooks for marketing plans at the Kansas Judicial Center, participating in a CAPS (Center for Advanced Professional Studies) coordinated Design Challenge, aimed at boosting public attendance at Kansas Supreme Court hearings.
The event brought together students for an educational, real-world project to address a persistent challenge for the state’s highest court: how to effectively advertise, communicate, and market its long-running practice of holding traveling court hearings across Kansas counties.
The Challenge: Bridging the Bench and the Community
For the past 14 years, the Kansas Supreme Court has held special sessions in various schools and community centers throughout the state to make the judicial branch more accessible to citizens. However, increasing attendance and participation from high school-age and community members has remained a key goal.
The Judicial Center partnered with the high schools to gain fresh insight, presenting the attendance issue as a formal client project for students to solve. This design challenge gives the students a unique opportunity to act as consultants to a major state institution.
Dr. Rebecca Kramer shared, "Our kids were allowed to solve a real-world challenge with the Kansas Supreme Justices. This experience helps make current learning relevant and prepares them for future careers."
Inter-District Collaboration Fuels Innovation
Students were organized into mixed groups, ensuring collaboration across the participating high schools. This setup encouraged diverse perspectives, with participants tasked to develop comprehensive proposals detailing how to best market the traveling hearings and engage a younger audience.
The challenge required students to apply skills in civics, communication, marketing, and public relations. Their proposals needed to address not just where to advertise, but how to make the complex legal process relevant and engaging to a general audience.
The culmination of the challenge was a formal, low-tech presentation of their proposals to a set of judges and court officials. Congratulations to all the students involved, and a special shout-out to the Horton High School students whose groups were honored as the top proposals in the design challenge: Tori Jelks, Tiffin Lanter, and Aubrey Thomas!
The judges will now review the student recommendations for potential implementation into the Supreme Court’s outreach strategy.
The design challenge serves as an excellent example of project-based learning, transforming the abstract concept of the state judicial system into a tangible, problem-solving exercise for future community leaders and voters.
Bryan Hirsch, Robyn Allen, and Dr. Rebecca Kramer accompanied the students. And we were very proud of how our students represented HHS and the South Brown County Community.
Check out what our Chargers had to say about today's event!