When Grade 12 students asked, "What defines a community in the 21st century?" their teacher didn't presume to know the answer. The question prompted the students to create a Youth Inquiry Project that explored the roles of media, technology, women, industry, poverty, discrimination, education, and environmental issues in our communities.

Each student created an individual inquiry question to shape how they look at their own communities in rural Nova Scotia. The students then visited a contrasting community in northern Alberta to see how their questions were reflected in the First Nations community of Fort McKay. The results of the students' thinking about communities are presented in this anthology.

Inspired and written by Nova Scotia high school students, this book demonstrates why we all should be optimistic about the role of young people in our current and future communities.