History's Test
Network Outreach Offers Online Citizenship Quiz
by Mike Reynolds -- Multichannel News, 2/3/2008 5:00:00 PM MT
Every year, over 500,000 people pass a test from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to become American citizens. How do you think you would fare?
Starting next week, you can find out by taking the online “Citizenship Quiz” from The History Channel and the National Archives and Records Administration.
As part of an affiliate and educational outreach effort, the Citizenship Quiz soft-launches tomorrow (Feb. 5) at history.com/citizenshipquiz, where visitors will discover more than 100 questions recently created by the USCIS. Users can take the test in multiple-choice form and then view the answers.
“No matter where people stand on immigration, citizenship is a key issue,” said Libby O'Connell, chief historian and senior vice president of corporate outreach at A&E Television Networks. “And certainly, during an election year, this is very relatable and fun way to think of citizenship.”
Later in the month, History will debut a virtual board game on the site. Players will stop at notable U.S. locations where they must answer correctly to continue on the path to earning a “Citizenship Certificate.”
The network will also push mobile content, with weekly text-message alerts and a mobile microsite so users can log on to the Web site from their cellphone, Blackberry, or mobile device.
O'Connell said this will be History's key affiliate promotion over the first half of 2008. The network will build exposure through on-air promos and question-and-answer interstitials, beginning President's Day (Feb. 18). It also aims to generate additional awareness through advertisements in educational publications and its own Web site.
History will furnish operators with taggable public-service announcements they can run on their systems.
For schools, History is sending free curriculum materials and teacher's guides to adapt to the classroom setting. A nationwide contest invites teachers to send in essays describing how they deployed the Web site and classroom materials to create unique lesson plans; the winner receives a $2,500 grant for their school.
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