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How to Use Service Learning to Engage Kids: Six strategies for starting meaningful community-service projects.
Integrating service-learning projects into your curriculum doesn't have to add hours to your planning time, and these projects deliver a big payoff for students. Fowler Unified School District teacher Monica Sigala urges her colleagues to begin with a short project. "Just start small and let it grow," says the teacher of grades 6-7. "Don't fear it, because service learning creates the type of kids who know they can make a difference in a life or in the world." Sigala and fellow Fowler teacher LeAnn Hodges share their strategies:
Source: Edutopia
Helping Strangers May Help Teens' Self-Esteem
Adolescents are under more pressure than ever, and many suffer from depression and anxiety. But new research suggests that volunteering to help strangers makes them feel better about themselves.
Source: KQED Mindshift
Videos
Videos
Project-Based Learning vs. Service-Learning
A quick comparison between two "competing" education ideas.
Source: National Youth Leadership Council
Service Learning: Real-Life Applications for Learning
Montpelier High School's service learning program integrates across the curriculum, utilizing a school greenhouse and gardens to provide food for the school district's lunch program. Montpelier High School GRADES 9-12 | MONTPELIER, VT
Source: Edutopia
Wetland Watchers: Kids Care for Their Environment
Service-learning connects learning to needs in the community. Follow the steps in the process outlined here to make successful plans with your students.
Source: Edutopia
Through this nationally recognized service-learning project in Louisiana, students have become stewards of the area's fragile wetlands.
Source: Learning to Give Organization
How to Change the World (a work in progress)
In today's adventure, Kid President explores people's different ideas about how to make the world better. What do you think is the best way to change the world?
Source: Soul Pancake & Kid President
Michael Soskil - Global Service Learning
Having looked at neuroscience research, he bases his approach to teaching on the finding that learning is stored in long-term memory when a child emotionally connects with what is being taught. He aims to facilitate emotional connections through project- and problem-based learning activities and by allowing students to feel the joy that comes through helping others.
Michael has designed numerous projects where his classes have collaborated with and learned from students and experts from different parts of the world. In recognition of his experience in this area, he was invited to speak at the United Nations Social Innovation Summit and Social Good Summit conferences. He has also presented at many international, national and state educational conferences on student empowerment, mathematics teaching, global collaboration and problem-based learning and has been sharing his insights via social media. In addition to supporting fellow teachers, he is also very active in his local community.
Source: Brainwaves
Service Learning in the PreK-3 Classroom Webinar
Webinar discussing PBL and Service Learning for PreK-3rd Grade classrooms.
Building Empathy Through Community Projects
Twice a year, students and teachers in Eminence, Kentucky, collaborate for three days on meaningful projects that serve their community.
Source: Edutopia
Books
Books
Service Learning in the PreK-3 Classroom: The What, Why, and How-To Guide for Every Teacher
by Vickie E. Lake (Author), Ithel Jones (Author)
Based on field trials with over 2,000 students and 215 educators, this one-of-a-kind resource presents all the background knowledge and skills needed to effectively use service learning in preK and primary classrooms. Rich in both theory and practice, the book combines community service with differentiated curriculum-based learning to meet the academic and social needs of the young children in meaningful ways.
by Cathryn Berger Kaye M.A. (Author)
This project-based guide is a blueprint for service learning—from getting started to assessing the experience—and integrates the K–12 Service-Learning Standards for Quality Practice. It provides ideas for incorporating literacy into service learning and suggestions for creating a culture of service. An award-winning treasury of activities, ideas, annotated book recommendations, author interviews, and expert essays—all presented within a curricular context and organized by theme.
by Barbara A. Lewis (Author)
This new edition of Free Spirit’s best-selling youth service guide includes a refreshed “Ten Steps to Successful Service Projects” plus hundreds of up-to-date ideas for projects—from simple to large-scale. At a time when U.S. President Barack Obama has called for increased participation in community service, this revitalized book is sure to find a whole new audience of eager young change-makers.
PhilanthroParties!: A Party-Planning Guide for Kids Who Want to Give Back
PhilanthroParties are “parties with a purpose.” In 2010, then ten-year-old Lulu Cerone was deeply affected by the earthquake in Haiti. She set out to raise money for Haitian relief by selling lemonade, but she upped the ante on the classic lemonade stand: she got her entire class to participate, boys against girls. Their lemonade “war” raised $4,000!
Whether they are in their schools or in their communities, individually or in groups, kids and teens can make a difference and inspire others to do the same.
Be a Changemaker: How to Start Something That Matters
by Laurie Ann Thompson (Author), Bill Drayton (Foreword)
Do you wish you could make a difference in your community or even the world? Are you one of the millions of high school teens with a service-learning requirement? Either way, Be a Changemaker will empower you with the confidence and knowledge you need to affect real change. You’ll find all the tools you need right here—through engaging youth profiles, step-by-step exercises, and practical tips, you can start making a difference today.
This inspiring guide will teach you how to research ideas, build a team, recruit supportive adults, fundraise, host events, work the media, and, most importantly, create lasting positive change. Apply lessons from the business world to problems that need solving and become a savvy activist with valuable skills that will benefit you for a lifetime!
CHILDREN'S LITERATURE
CHILDREN'S LITERATURE
Orca Footprints Nonfiction Books to Inspire Service Learning Projects
Orca Footprints are nonfiction books for young readers. Kids today inhabit a world full of complex—and often mystifying—environmental issues. The Footprints series aims to help kids answer their questions about the state of the natural world with well-researched, simply-expressed information and powerful images. With topics such as food production, water, cycling and sustainable energy, these books will inspire kids to take action.
Correlated to the Common Core Standards.
Programs and Initiatives
Programs and Initiatives
Lead2Feed Student Leadership Program
Effective. Tested. Life-changing. Lead2Feed is a free leadership program that nurtures a new generation of leaders – the ones sitting in your classroom and school – while working to meet a community need through project management, decision-making and teamwork. Based on the best-selling book, Taking People With You by Yum! Brands Co-Founder, Former Chairman and CEO David Novak, Lead2Feed empowers students to act, to serve and to make big things happen. Join the leadership movement today!
Lead 2 Feed has the Gold Seal Approval from Buck Institute for Project Based Learning
GGC is an evidenced based, FREE, SEL education program that empowers kids to #IgniteGood and make the world a better place through community service learning. Empower Today. Change Tomorrow.
CWI's work with teachers, schools, and organizations places particular emphasis on service-learning, place based education, and sustainability.
Call us idealists, but we think impacting the world should be fun. PoP Clubs in schools promote our shared mission to unlock the promise of children in the developing world through quality education and plan events and campaigns to create tangible good within our partner communities.
When Lulu was 10, she learned that each cup of lemonade she sold for $1 can provide a person in Africa with clean drinking water for one whole year. Inspired by the life saving power of even the smallest donation, she set up a Boys vs Girls LemonAID challenge for her fifth grade class. They exceeded all expectations by raising $4,000 and had so much fun doing it that her classmates didn't want to stop. So she founded LemonAID Warriors to share creative action plans and provide PhilanthroParty Planning Guides to make social activism a part of her generation's social life. Eight years later, LemonAID Warriors has raised over $150,000, provided clean water for thousands of people in Africa, sent hundreds of children to school, and supported dozens of other local and global charities. Lulu published her book PhilanthroParties! A Party-Planning Guide for Kids Who Want to Give Back through Beyond Words/Simon & Schuster, teaching young people how to party with a purpose.
For 26 years, the Captain Planet Foundation™ has supported educators with grants, resources, tools, and models to spark children’s curiosity, cultivate a love of nature, and engage students in science and engineering practices to solve real-world problems. Our programs and materials have co-evolved with education priorities over the years to ensure educators have the tools and strategies to meet their needs both in and out of the classroom. Read more about how Captain Planet Foundation™ partners with formal and informal educators to advance ways in which nature and schoolyards can provide context and relevance for engaged project-based learning.
Founded in 1991 by Dr. Jane Goodall, Jane Goodall’s Roots & Shoots is a youth service program for young people of all ages. Our mission is to foster respect and compassion for all living things, to promote understanding of all cultures and beliefs, and to inspire each individual to take action to make the world a better place for people, other animals, and the environment.
Empower your students to "do well" and "do good." Learning to Give helps K-12 educators enhance their academic expectations to build classroom community and lifelong philanthropic and civically engaged citizens. From kindergarten to twelfth grade, Learning to Give students are using skills of writing, history, science, math, and arts as they learn about and take action in their own community.
Start with a Learning to Give lesson and inspire student action to address a community need. The Learning to Give mini-grants range from $250 to $500 with a simple, yet competitive application process and priority given to those who use social media to share their plans, discuss ideas, and reflect! #LTGMiniGrant #Teach1
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