Alberta Youth Parliament Project‪.‬

Democracy came alive for 83 Alberta grade 10 social studies students who spent five and a half hours serving as MLAs during the first Mr. Speaker's Alberta Youth Parliament on April 15 and 16, 1999. Fourteen teachers participated in the concurrent teachers' program. It was as close to the real thing as the students could get, right down to live television coverage and authentic issues of Votes and Proceedings, Orders of the Day, and Hansard (all of which were subsequently posted on the Assembly's web site, www.assembly.ab.ca. At a bearpit session with Speaker Ken Kowalski, several teachers commented that the briefing sessions were too short, the pace was too hectic, students had to work too late into the night preparing, and nobody had much of a chance to develop comradery within their caucuses. "The whole experience is so real," Speaker Kowalski replied. "These are the same comments MLAs make after every election!"