While educators have the expertise, they lack the time to comb for materials that use today’s social media and technology.

Together with young journalists, she helped craft three curricula and has prepared professional development workshops for educators.

Sygiel has a strong background in news literacy, civic literacy and media literacy. All three are important for developing a framework to assess information and create communication products for today’s information environment.

Sygiel Solutions will design lessons that engage students while developing 21^st century skills.

Oftentimes the gadgets become the focal point, instead of the creation of compelling content. As an experienced educator, Sygiel has developed strategies to teach critical thinking and problem solving that work with young people in informal and formal learning environments.

Y-Press youth journalists knew that their peers were not taught the know-how to develop and hone questioning skills and sought to remedy that. In tandem with educators, young people created videos and classrooms lessons for the Power-of-the-question project, interviewing journalists from NPR, NBC, ESPN and CNN.

A local magnet elementary school’s specialty was communication, and while staff had articulated the vision, they did not have the road map or the resources to integrate the theme in units of study for first through sixth graders.

Newspaper management knew that one key to keeping readers was to start them early and saw using the daily newspaper in the classroom as a way to engage and connect.

A school district wanted to create a more engaging social studies curriculum using children’s literature for students in the district’s kindergartens to third grades.

Y-Press journalists, power-of-the-question project, Subject Matters, digital profiles curricula.

Crestview Elementary, Lawrence Township Public Schools, communication magnet curriculum.

The Salem Evening News (Mass.), Newspaper in Education curriculum and professional development and graduate course.

Danvers (Mass.) Public Schools, Literature-based social studies curriculum for K-3