Learning Modules
Ranger Service Learning (RSL) is an elective for seniors at North Ridgeville High School that combines English and Social Studies curricula with volunteer opportunities to promote social involvement through education and service. The learning modules below represent topics studied throughout the year.
Each topic explored in RSL is driven by essential questions. According to Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, essential questions "are not answerable with finality in a single lesson or a brief sentence - and that's the point. Their aim is to stimulate thought, to provoke inquiry, and to spark more questions, including thoughtful student questions, not just pat answers." The questions below are intended to serve as doorways through which learners can explore important concepts, themes, theories, issues, and problems within the course content and deepen their understandings.
Service Learning 101
Effective service learning programs engage students in a process of preparation, action, and reflection. Service learning 101 serves as an introduction to the service experiences students will encounter in the RSL program.
Essential Questions:
What is the difference between helping and serving?
What does it mean to be a good citizen?
How does service change lives?
Philanthropy
In this unit, RSL students learn to be philanthropists – quality decision-makers who identify community needs, research organizations working to address those needs, and invest resources in programs that produce positive results.
Essential Questions:
What does it mean to be a philanthropist?
How does charity differ from justice?
Why does philanthropy matter?
Poverty & Homelessness
An estimated 3.5 million people experience homelessness each year, 39 percent of which are children. This unit affords students the opportunity to examine the social, institutional, systematic, and internalized causes of oppression against the poor and homeless while analyzing the progress of organizations attempting to end poverty and homelessness.
Essential Questions:
Who are the poor and the homeless?
Why do poverty and homelessness remain problems in our modern world?
How can people, working individually or collectively, work to address the issues of poverty and homelessness in their community?
Education Reform
Today, there are almost as many ideas about how to reform the United States' education system as there are people in the United States. Reformers address a wide range of issues: teacher evaluation, standardized testing, school choice, funding, and cultural attitudes toward education. This module will afford you the opportunity to analyze and evaluate proposed school reforms.
Essential Questions:
What are the qualities and characteristics of a great school?
Who is responsible for creating and sustaining great public schools?
What needs to happen in your community, state, or country to improve public education?
The Power of Relationships
Building and maintaining relationships is the foundation of a powerful service experience - and a meaningful life. This unit challenges us to closely examine the core elements of powerful relationships and practice those philosophies through service experiences. Specifically, students will examine the loneliness epidemic faced by the elderly in our community and the use of reminiscence therapy to promote wellness for the young and young at heart.
Essential Questions:
What are the core elements of powerful relationships?
What might happen if we choose to invest time in others?
How might listening be addressed within each level of civic engagement?
How can people working individually and collectively combat the loneliness epidemic?
Immigration
This unit will afford you the opportunity to discover where today's immigrants to America are coming from, what is motivating them to leave their homeland, and what obstacles they face upon arrival. Along the way you will analyze proposed immigration reforms from a variety of perspectives and identify strategies that can be implemented to address immigration concerns in our country and in our community.
Essential Questions:
Why do some immigrants experience oppression?
How do beliefs about immigrants vary among social, economic, and political groups?
Should immigration be restricted or regulated? When? Who decides?
How can citizens affect meaningful change on the issue of immigration reform?
Inclusive Communities
Federal legislation in the 1970s and 1990s helped millions of Americans with disabilities lead more independent lives. Although great strides have been made, people with special needs still face bias, harmful stereotypes, and irrational fears that result in their social and economic oppression. This unit challenges students to raise awareness about the abilities of people with disabilities in an attempt to build a more inclusive community.
Essential Questions:
Why do people with special needs find it challenging to be fully included in school, work, community, and family life?
How do the stereotypes about people with special needs differ from the reality?
How can people advocate to work for the expansion of rights for people with special needs?
Environmental Justice
In his book titled Man and Nature, George Perkins Marsh asserts that great civilizations decline because they adversely affect their environment. In this unit, students will assess the impact of human activities on current and future generations from a variety of perspectives. Specifically, students will examine the distribution of environmental benefits and burdens in Northeast Ohio and raise awareness about environmental justice issues through photographs.
Essential Questions:
How can photography serve as a tool for civic engagement?
Do civilizations decline when they adversely affect their environment?
How can people, working individually or collectively, advocate for sustainability in their community, country, or world?
Is there ever a fair distribution of environmental burdens & benefits in a community?