class notes on service learning projects

Class Notes 10/22/09:

Service Learning Ideas

Voting rights: key people in women’s rights, supreme court decisions, and create a lesson to put on a website functioning as a virtual museum which will then be used to teach younger students about the subject

Oral History: Americans in nursing homes are interviewed and recorded to make a digital storytelling presentation to tell stories of daily life from 75 years ago and upload onto YouTube

Voter Registration: observe trends and asking opinions…create resources to motivate voters or inform voters of important issues…also you can preregister 16 yr olds so they can vote in the next election…try to secure television time to inform the community, also use community centers or other public places to motivate voters

Human Trafficking: discussion of amendments relating to slavery…bring the issue into modern times because this still happens…students get in groups and look at how our govt. deals with the issue and then compile the information and engage in a letter campaign to congress

Military letter writing: students create a wiki where they write blogs to members of the military and they will then write back…this is designed to make the soldiers feel in touch

Honoring veterans: pick a vet and do 30 min interview…before the interview they would do research on the war the vet was in…during the interview they would record 2 important minutes to post as a podcast and blog with each other about the different vets

War on Drugs: investigate all aspects of the drug war and create a wiki as well as writing a congressperson about a drug problem they wish

Support a Soldier: garner support from the community to support troops and maintain a website to collect donations, write to soldiers, and post videos to the troops

Operation Christmas Child: learn about a variety of cultures and gain a personal understanding of helping less fortunates…they will volunteer at local shelters and put together Christmas packages…they will blog about what they learn and teach each other…then create a podcast, etc, about what they gained and how it could be different

Using internet for elderly: psychology based unit…students will go to elderly homes and interview them, then they will train them how to use email and other internet forms of communication…then they will reassess the elderly at the end, then they will write a paper explaining how elderly can benefit form tech and use inquiry map

Increasing cultural awareness: learn about immigration, poll the school to find out about different heritages, then research the countries most represented by the school, then create a wiki representing each nation and then display the info at a fair

Habitat for humanity: students pair up with Habitat to determine costs involved in building and financing houses and then research cost effective ways to maintain the operation…they place the reports on wikis and make biographies about families who’ve received homes and post them to blogs or wikis…then they learn why homelessness occurs

Oral history connecting past to present: students will write about things that are important to their lives, then go interview elderly about things they thought were important to their lives when they were young…then they make videos about their lives and host a party for elderly to view the videos

Helping the community: students must go out into the community and find a need to help them with…then they will go to politicians to get info as to what they are doing to solve the problem, then they will post what politicians say on a wiki, in an attempt to keep them honest

Visiting nursing homes: students will write about their lives and visit nursing homes to interview elderly about their lives and compare the experiences

Students and the environment: students will visit local parks to discover how the environment is being polluted…students will clean up the parks and learn about the environment and how to impact it…then they will write about their experiences to try and get others involved

Election research: students will research various aspects of elections, such as stats and the role of govt. in peoples lives…visit retirement home and ask about how they voted in past elections…record the interviews and create oral history project and write thank you letters to elderly

Increase voter turnout: learn about absence of youth vote, generate survey to investigate youth vote, create posters or other forms of media to take action to inspire young people to vote

Voting and Campaigning: create a campaign to raise awareness of the need for youths to vote and create google motion chart to diagram stats and blog to raise awareness

Individual student rights: students learn about civic rights and teach others about them…students select a topic pertaining to individual rights, research it, and put it in a class wiki…then they organize a fair for students and community members to explain their topic

Land of Rising Sun: at-risk students find pen pals in Japan to help them expand their cultural views…they can compare the information they are being taught (ie WWII)…use a website to communicate through or wiki to expose biases in their education

Muslim-American Awareness: Research news articles on how Muslims were presented in the American media…read “Ask me no Questions” trade book…students would create questionnaire and interview people on what the Patriot Act contains and impacts and what their opinions are towards Muslims…also spread awareness on immigration…students create wikis about the act and what people think vs. what it actually is

Your community through the ages: students pick a person or landmark that represents the Cold War and do research on that time period to learn specifics about the era. Students will interview people who lived during the event and bring the information together on a class wiki…students can write articles to be published by the newspaper to get the community involved in history

Haitian history and geography: network with a school in Haiti to blog and discuss issues relating to how they pay for and get to school…public class website compiling what students learned about the differences between the two schools…the information will then be presented to the school and community to get others involved