By RHYS WALTERS

An American Government class at Nathan Hale High School won $1,000 for taking third place in the statewide ³Student Voices² competition in February. The Hale class, led by teacher Erin Lynch, entered a video and pamphlet to educate teens and adults on the Cityıs Teen Dance Ordinance.

The competition was part of the National Student Voices project, which has been conducted in several other cities, including Detroit, New York, Newark, N.J., and Tulsa, Okla.

The purpose of the project is to ³encourage the civic engagement of young people by bringing the study of a local political campaign into the classroom,² according to the organizationıs Web site (http://student-voices.org).

The political campaign the Hale class chose to study was on how the Cityıs controversial Teen Dance Ordinance may have had a part in determining the outcome of the Mayoral election, which was won by Greg Nickels. Nickels, a longtime county councilman, opposed the teen dance ordinance, whereas his opponent, City Attorney Mark Sidran, supported it. ³In theory,² said Lynch, ³it was sort of a real world thing.²

The schools competing in the competition were asked to come up with something to educate the community. Lynchıs students plan to distribute their pamphlet and video to Hale students as well as other high schools.

Rhys Walters is a senior at Nathan Hale.