On campus

In addition to the resources below, students and educators may use any items from the main Toolkit free of charge during Sunshine Week.

Join the cause, become a fan

The Sunshine campaign is now a Facebook Cause and has its own Facebook Page.

Join the Cause to show your support and even make a donation for Sunshine Week and the Sunshine Campaign. You also can become a "fan" of Sunshine Week and the Sunshine Campaign through the main page.

Either way, displaying your support for open government will help spread the word about this important issue to your Facebook friends and throughout the network.

Get the goods

Whether you support open government or just think Ronnie and Donnie are cute — or maybe even a little of both — you now can get exclusive Sunshine Week and Sunshine Campaign merchandise from our online store at CafePress.com.

Traditional Sunshine Week logo merchandise is available in our main shop, and we've created two others. One features the Sunshine Campaign "spokesmammals" Ronnie & Donnie on T-shirts, sweatshirts, caps, mugs, clocks, notepads and more. The other utilizes the Vote for Sunshine campaign button imagery on similar items, including actual campaign-style buttons.

Any organization interested in co-branding products with its logo and the Sunshine Week merchandise should contact Sunshine Week Coordinator Cristal Williams Chancellor.

ASNE high school journalism resources

ASNE's High School Journalism project has created a 3-day lesson plan for high school students to help them participate in Sunshine Week. The unit focuses on Freedom of Information law and the First Amendment.

For more information and lesson plans, see the American Society of Newspaper Editor's High School Journalism site

Society of Professional Journalists offers Sunshine Week ideas, resources

The Society of Professional Journalists has produced special Sunshine Week Web pages offering ideas and resources for use by SPJ chapters specifically, in the classroom or by newsrooms in general. The guide offers ideas for coverage, a list of experts and sources, links to relevant reports and studies, curriculum ideas and classroom guides, and other tools to help anyone — not just SPJ members — celebrate Sunshine Week. It's online here.

"It's our duty as journalists, and a key mission for SPJ, to shine a light into the dark recesses of government secrecy," the site explains.

Sunshine Week partners with Helium to encourage citizen journalists to write about open government and FOI issues

Sunshine Week has joined forces with Helium, a leader in online citizen journalism, to generate discussion about issues that reflect open government and Freedom of Information. The innovative partnership provides Helium members with a platform to write about issues raised by Sunshine Week.

SPLC resources for high school, college journalists

The Student Press Law Center will celebrate Sunshine Week with daily stories and resources posted on the SPLC Web site to help high school and college journalists use open records in their reporting.

For more, visit the SPLC Web site.

NewsU. teaches first amendment online

The NewsU. online training site, in conjunction with the J-Ideas program at Ball State University, offers a First Amendment workshop for high school students, teachers and anyone else who wants to learn more about the First Amendment.

The course runs two hours, but can be stopped and restarted as desired. It is offered free of charge to registered NewsU. users, and is available online.

Bright Ideas for Sunshine Week 2007

“Bright Ideas for Sunshine Week,” the annual collection of examples from the prior Sunshine Week, is online.

The collection from Sunshine Week 2006 features a variety of news and opinion from print, broadcast and online outlets, photos from events, creative graphic presentations, examples of student work and, new to this edition, The Big Picture, which shows how several newspapers incorporated Sunshine Week into print and online packages.

While all the ideas can be adapted by college and high school student journalists, and other young people looking for ways to mark Sunshine Week, there is a chapter dedciated to student efforts.

More…

News resources for student journalists

Black College Wire is a news service that promotes the work of students and predominantly black colleges and universities.

The Future of the First Amendment Project surveyed students, teachers and school administrators about their knowledge of and attitudes about the First Amendment.

KRT Campus is a wire service developed by the American Society of Newspaper Editors and Knight Ridder/Tribune for student journalists.

The Student Press Law Center Newsflash provides news about challenges to student publications—and their victories—around the nation.

Student journalism resources

The following are just a few of the many organizations that work toward building better student journalists. To suggest others for the list, please send us an e-mail with the name and URL.

ASNE's High School Journalism Project: Administered by the American Society of Newspaper Editors, this includes the highschooljournalism.org site, the High School Journalism Institute, online hosting for high school newspapers, weekly collections of student-generated stories, journalism partnerships and the ASNE-Knight Ridder/Tribune information service.
Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication: AEJMC is a non-profit educational association providing resources and training for educators, students and media professionals.
College Media Advisers: CMA helps student media professionals improve the collegiate newspapers, yearbooks, magazines, radio, television and cable operations they advise.
The Dow Jones Newspaper Fund: Founded by editors of The Wall Street Journal, the DJNF offers internships, scholarships, career guidance and training to help develop young journalists.
First Amendment Center: Through its First Amendment Schools program, the First Amendment Center provides the tools to help teach the fundamentals of the First Amendment to grades K-12.
J-Ideas: This Ball State University-based program provides training, programs and other activities designed to raise awareness of the First Amendment among students and educators.
Journalism Education Association: Headquartered at Kansas State University, Manhattan, JEA is an independent national scholastic journalism organization for teachers and advisers.
NAA Foundation: The Newspaper Association of America Foundation links to many Newspaper in Education resource sites and other information.
Student Press Law Center: The nation's only legal assistance organization for student journalists, SPLC provides free legal advice and low-cost educational materials on a variety of issues.