People are more engaged in politics than they were in the 1990s and this includes teens under the age of 18.

These finding are from a civic report, released Sept. 22 by the National Conference on Citizenship, a leading advocacy group for civic participation chartered by Congress.

The report, "2008 Civic Health Index: Beyond the Vote," found that that many Americans are engaged right now in the political process. Not only are they thinking and talking about the issues, they are taking action, according to the report. In fact, 12 percent of the 3,000 people interviewed either by phone or online in July said they had attended a political rally or meeting compared to the 7 percent found to have done so in the November 2004 American National Election Study.

And those in the 15-29 age group are showing strong interest in civic participation reversing some of the decreases seen since the 1970s.

Locally, young people (mostly high school students under age 18) are volunteering for presidential and other political candidates.

Matt Bizjack, 17, a senior at Elk Grove High School, decided to volunteer for U.S. Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama because he didn't want to see his parents go into further debt.

Tom Lenz, 17, and a senior at James B. Conant High School in Hoffman Estates, started volunteering for two Republican political candidates -- U.S. Rep. Peter Roskam, R-6th, and Anita Forte-Scott, the Republican challenger to State Rep. Paul Froehlich, D-56 -- because he thinks the country needs a change, just not the kind of change that Obama is offering.

For this article finding teens in the northwest suburbs who are volunteering for Obama was relatively easy. They seemed to be everywhere.

However, finding Republican teens volunteering for U.S. Republican presidential nominee John McCain or other GOP political candidates was a tougher task and took longer.

"The reality is that young people are much more supportive of Obama than McCain," said University of Wisconsin at Madison Professor Diana Hess, who specializes young people and politics.

Part of the increase youth interest in politics is because political campaigns, especially Obama's, are reaching out to young people online and making it easier for them to take part in the process, she said.

Eight years ago a teenager interested in volunteering would not know how to go about it, she said. But today more campaign offices have opened across the country. Obama especially has "offices all over the place," Hess said.

Also, youth who are not even old enough to vote may volunteer because they are being "hip," Hess said.

"It might be cool this year to be politically engaged in a way that really hasn't been in the past," she said.