Essential Question: How can a Northgate student stimulate positive global change?

The Northgate High School If I Could Change the World project began in 2017 as a way to enrich our 10th grade history curriculum with service learning.  Students begin the year by learning about modern global challenges with the goal of connecting students with the movements and events shaping the world they are living in.  Students then research and identify a cause that they genuinely feel strongly about (whether covered in class or not). Students then seek out community service opportunities that are relevant to the topic they chose for their essay.  After completing this service, students present a three-minute speech to their classmates in which they highlight the cause they wrote about earlier, and recount the experience they had participating in relevant community service.  As audience members, students get to indicate speakers whose topics resonated with them. Highly rated speeches will form the basis for group service projects in the second semester.

Phase II of the project begins with the formation of student groups of 7 to 9 people around a single topic.  Together each group will complete service toward their cause, research and design their own learning activities, and then present their topic and service to our school community in the form of an interactive booth at our Booth Showcase on May 21st, 2024.  Groups feature students from multiple teachers’ classes (when the school master calendar allows for it) and each class has a set of 3 or 4 unique topics. All students taking World History, AP World History, or AP European History participate in the project, which means the 2023-2024 project will feature 3 teachers, 375 students, 43 group topics, and approximately 3,750 hours of community service and advocacy in total.

AP students will completing the project in conjunction with the AP with WE Service program from the College Board.  This will include receiving a special recognition on their AP score report and transcript upon successful completion of the If I Could Change the World project.