What is Service Learning?
“Service learning is a form of project based learning in which academic goals are accomplished through community service. Service learning is neither an add-on nor a diversion from the curriculum. It is a powerful approach to teaching that provides kids with authentic learning experiences in which they learn academic content in a real-life, real-world context. Properly implemented, service learning develops citizenship, responsibility, and many other positive character virtues, making it a highly effective character education program in and of itself.” Goodcharacter.com
Resources and Ideas:
K-12 Articles and Guides:
K-12 Service Learning Projects, Lessons and Examples:
Compilation Articles
Research on Service Learning:
- K-12 National Service-Learning Clearinghouse: Generator School Network - NYLC Service Learning Projects 200+ projects for students in grades K-12. The projects involve service learning and contributing to the community. Projects are grouped by grades K-3, 4-6, 6-8, and 9-12. You can filter selections by area of service.
- National Service-Learning Clearinghouse at Youth.Gov: The National Service-Learning Clearinghouse (NSLC) supports the service-learning community in higher education, kindergarten through grade twelve, community-based organizations, tribal programs, and all others interested in strengthening schools and communities using service-learning.
- A Guide to Creating High School Service Learning Projects with Students with Special Needs:
K-12 Articles and Guides:
- What the Heck Is Service Learning? Here's a simple definition for service learning with details and resources for planning a unit.
- Tips for Combining Project-Based and Service Learning: Help your students find a larger sense of purpose in their schoolwork even as they achieve educational goals.
- In the Classroom with Liliana Aguas: Service Learning Projects in the Elementary Classroom:
- Definition of Service Learning: and another definition:
- Benefits of Service-Learning:
- Service-Learning Reflection Activities:
- K-12 Service-Learning — Student's Guide & Journal: Helping You Take Your Student's Education To A Higher Level (must pay and order).
- RESOURCE K-12 Service-Learning Standards for Quality Practice Explore standards from the National Youth Leadership Council that deliver clear guidelines for designing and assessing meaningful service-learning experiences.
- How to Change the World: Service PBL in the Common Core Literacy Classroom
- How to Find a Home for Service-Learning Projects:
- BLOG How to Bring Service Learning to Your School Students who engage in educational community service have the opportunity to help others and to grow academically, emotionally, and socially.
K-12 Service Learning Projects, Lessons and Examples:
- Video: 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.
- Real-World Problem Solving: Project-Based Solutions: By using real-world problems as projects for children to solve, Crellin Elementary empowers, engages, and excites students about what they can learn and how they can use that knowledge.
- Constructing Sustainable Houses Develops Collaborative Skills: Teens in Philadelphia learn how to solve math and engineering problems while working together to build high-efficiency homes designed for disaster relief, as part of an alternative senior year program called the Workshop School.
- High School Child Care: Teenagers in Illinois learn about and tend to young children in a unique day-care program on the campus of a high school
- Wetland Watchers: Kids Care for Their Environment: Through this nationally recognized service-learning project in Louisiana, students have become stewards of the area's fragile wetlands
- Stand Up for Alaska: Alaska Youth for Environmental Action: Members of this high school environmental education and leadership program created a presentation about climate change, gathered more than 5,000 signatures from fellow students, and went to Washington, DC, to persuade one of their senators to take action on global warming.
- Teach Philanthropy Education – k-12 Lesson Plans
- Classroom lesson plans creatively infuse philanthropy into K-12 academic content and serve as a foundation for a student-centered approach.
- Sample Elementary Lesson: Teaching Peace through Literature and Song
- Middle School Lesson: Justice and Kindness Play a Part: (MLK Day)
- Teach generosity and philanthropy through shared reading:
Compilation Articles
- Service Learning Project Ideas
- 35+ SERVICE PROJECTS FOR KIDS:
- 55 Environmental Service-Learning Projects:
- Community Service Ideas for Kids all Ages:
- K-12 KIDS Consortium: Examples of Service-Learning Projects:
- Service-Learning Project Examples - Middle School
- High School Service Learning Examples:
Research on Service Learning:
- The Impact of Service-Learning: A Review of Current Research: Research studies of service-learning, an educational method that intentionally connects commu- nity service to classroom learning, demonstrate that service-learning programs can have positive impacts on youth in three general areas: academic engagement and achievement; civic attitudes and behaviors; and social and personal skills. The studies also demonstrate that students gain the maximum benefit when their service-learning experience includes a direct tie to the curriculum, planning and design of service projects by students, structured reflection on the service experience in the classroom, and continuity of service for at least one semester.
- IEA Civic Education Study research which has addressed the civic engagement and knowledge of large representative samples of 14-year-olds in 28 countries and 17-18 year olds in 16 countries. Participation in service-related activities is among the topics surveyed (and over the next year more data analysis will be appearing on the site about this issue).
- Best Practices and Effectiveness of Service Learning:
- Improving Student Learning Outcomes with Service Learning: (college). Through this study’s results, those community college faculty and students who have experienced service learning appear to affirm that service learning is a key strategy for student engagement and a valuable learning tool for students across disciplines and academic majors, while at the same time providing these students with experiences that dissolve the classroom walls and help launch them more solidly into their careers of choice.
- THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RESEARCH ON SERVICE-LEARNING AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT: