This website is here to provide resources that inspire educators to implement project based and service learning in their classrooms.
Funding provided by: YSA / State Farm.
Investigation & Student Voice:
All projects begin with an idea! Brainstorm with your students to determine the needs in the community and issues that interest them. Do research or send team members into the community to seek out input and ideas from your neighborhood and community members. Project needs or interests may include, social justice (bullying awareness, homelessness), environmental (a garden, planting or clean-up), educational (a teaching fair), global (raise funds/awareness for those struggling other countries or the effects of climate change), or community beautification (mural or garden). Brainstorming sessions include the voices and ideas from everyone in your class! Once your team has narrowed down project ideas, vote for which project to pursue. This gives everyone an opportunity to have their voice heard.
Learning & Partnerships
Once your team chooses a project the fun begins! Educators need to consider which educational standards will be met during the project. Very often it will be discovered that your project is cross-curricular. Beginning this process with the end in mind is the most efficient way to write your project curriculum.
As an example, if your group wants to build a bird and butterfly garden, the standards for this project will include learning:
When our team made a bird and butterfly garden, we used curriculum from Earth Partnership for Schools. Educators will then use their district's educational standards (mine uses Common Core) to identify which standards are covered during the learning portion of their project.
Every project has a unique opportunity for teaching and learning; partnerships are very important. Many of our projects include one or two grantors who have specific guidelines to meet their own outcomes and goals for funding. If this is the case, educators must begin with a grant proposal that matches their grantors goals. Our team is currently working on a project, based on a grant from State Farm/YSA, it is titled "The Patriotism Project."
Sometimes projects are selected first and the curriculum is built around an idea, and other times curriculum can be selected first and the project becomes a natural extension of learning. Both are conducive to a rich service learning environment, packed full of educational standards and real-life work skills.
Planning & Project Day
Your team needs to create goals and a time-line for your project. Remain flexible, be open to new ideas and changes, and modify your time-line as you go; but, remain firm on your "project due date" and always include an optional "rain-date" for outdoor projects. Some projects have an event day and others have a due date, either way it is an important skill for youth to write goals and stick to a due date.
The planning or "doing" phase is when the most educational differentiation occurs in project-based learning. Every student has strengths and things they feel passionate about completing. Allow youth to use their strengths to shine! When we created our Climate Carnival, some students loved building the booths and they helped other groups with their build. Each team selected specific topics within the broader topic of climate change to build their educational booth around, these were interest specific. Our student artists designed our fliers and helped teams with their designs. Our writers wrote our press releases and our researchers fact-checked the information we provided to our guests. During this phase of service learning, educators become part of the team, they coach, they help with quality control, problem solving and ask many, many questions to draw out the best in each of their students.
If you have an event day, help your students to visualize their project in action. Help them to create a personal list of things they need to do on event day, this will help students to mentally rehearse their roles and jobs before sharing their work with others. Our Climate Carnival included two set-up rehearsals where we practiced preparing for the public by setting up booths to assure the set-up would look and work well. We also brought in an expert in the field of climate for the students to practice their spiel for accuracy and cohesiveness.
Reflection
Reflection is a very important, continuous, step of service learning. Student reflection connects their service to their learning and their personal contribution to the project. We use reflection daily as a class meeting and opener. This is a great way for teachers to track learning with formative assessments. Teachers take notes as the students reflect on what they have accomplished and learned, their goals for the day, and the things they would like to improve as they go. Teachers can use this as an opportunity to spot check where individual students feel they are in their learning goals and to guide their instruction or formative assessments. Students use reflection as an opportunity to assess their own learning and set new goals as they go. Reflection is a time to celebrate small accomplishments and praise the progress of the team. Additionally, we use reflections as a weekly written assessment or as a final summative assessment. This is the final reflection and assessment used for our Bird and Butterfly Habitat Garden. This year I will be experimenting with video reflections to compile and use during our celebration.
Reflections usually include the following information in some way: What did you do? What did it mean? What would you do in a different way next time? What would you like to do next?
Celebration
Celebration can take many forms. Celebrations can be student led and planned. The actual celebration can come in many forms, but it is very important for the team to be acknowledged for the positive impact they have made. Reflection is always a part of the celebration. In the classroom it is easy to plan a celebration party with snacks, project photos or videos. It is important to simply set aside time to be together to visit collectively about the project and enjoy your accomplishments.
Please see our Service Learning Blog to see photos of these projects examples....and many other projects in action!
All projects begin with an idea! Brainstorm with your students to determine the needs in the community and issues that interest them. Do research or send team members into the community to seek out input and ideas from your neighborhood and community members. Project needs or interests may include, social justice (bullying awareness, homelessness), environmental (a garden, planting or clean-up), educational (a teaching fair), global (raise funds/awareness for those struggling other countries or the effects of climate change), or community beautification (mural or garden). Brainstorming sessions include the voices and ideas from everyone in your class! Once your team has narrowed down project ideas, vote for which project to pursue. This gives everyone an opportunity to have their voice heard.
Learning & Partnerships
Once your team chooses a project the fun begins! Educators need to consider which educational standards will be met during the project. Very often it will be discovered that your project is cross-curricular. Beginning this process with the end in mind is the most efficient way to write your project curriculum.
As an example, if your group wants to build a bird and butterfly garden, the standards for this project will include learning:
- Science: Ecology, native plants, types of birds and butterfly and the plants the attract them, soil types, water source and why it is important for environmental conservation to create the garden).
- Math: Budgeting funding, designing the garden based on the expected size of plants at maturity, determining water needs of the garden and timeline for planting and pruning.
- English Language Arts: A lot of research, making garden markers, exploring nurseries on-line for plants and making fliers for the community to visit.
- Social Studies: The social migration process which shrunk natural habitats and created the need to build new habitats for birds and butterflies.
- Art: Each team member creates a handmade field guide for birds, butterflies and native plants. Field guides may include sketches, descriptions and connections.
- Work & Social Skills: Collaboration, Critical Thinking, Creativity and Communication!
When our team made a bird and butterfly garden, we used curriculum from Earth Partnership for Schools. Educators will then use their district's educational standards (mine uses Common Core) to identify which standards are covered during the learning portion of their project.
Every project has a unique opportunity for teaching and learning; partnerships are very important. Many of our projects include one or two grantors who have specific guidelines to meet their own outcomes and goals for funding. If this is the case, educators must begin with a grant proposal that matches their grantors goals. Our team is currently working on a project, based on a grant from State Farm/YSA, it is titled "The Patriotism Project."
Sometimes projects are selected first and the curriculum is built around an idea, and other times curriculum can be selected first and the project becomes a natural extension of learning. Both are conducive to a rich service learning environment, packed full of educational standards and real-life work skills.
Planning & Project Day
Your team needs to create goals and a time-line for your project. Remain flexible, be open to new ideas and changes, and modify your time-line as you go; but, remain firm on your "project due date" and always include an optional "rain-date" for outdoor projects. Some projects have an event day and others have a due date, either way it is an important skill for youth to write goals and stick to a due date.
The planning or "doing" phase is when the most educational differentiation occurs in project-based learning. Every student has strengths and things they feel passionate about completing. Allow youth to use their strengths to shine! When we created our Climate Carnival, some students loved building the booths and they helped other groups with their build. Each team selected specific topics within the broader topic of climate change to build their educational booth around, these were interest specific. Our student artists designed our fliers and helped teams with their designs. Our writers wrote our press releases and our researchers fact-checked the information we provided to our guests. During this phase of service learning, educators become part of the team, they coach, they help with quality control, problem solving and ask many, many questions to draw out the best in each of their students.
If you have an event day, help your students to visualize their project in action. Help them to create a personal list of things they need to do on event day, this will help students to mentally rehearse their roles and jobs before sharing their work with others. Our Climate Carnival included two set-up rehearsals where we practiced preparing for the public by setting up booths to assure the set-up would look and work well. We also brought in an expert in the field of climate for the students to practice their spiel for accuracy and cohesiveness.
Reflection
Reflection is a very important, continuous, step of service learning. Student reflection connects their service to their learning and their personal contribution to the project. We use reflection daily as a class meeting and opener. This is a great way for teachers to track learning with formative assessments. Teachers take notes as the students reflect on what they have accomplished and learned, their goals for the day, and the things they would like to improve as they go. Teachers can use this as an opportunity to spot check where individual students feel they are in their learning goals and to guide their instruction or formative assessments. Students use reflection as an opportunity to assess their own learning and set new goals as they go. Reflection is a time to celebrate small accomplishments and praise the progress of the team. Additionally, we use reflections as a weekly written assessment or as a final summative assessment. This is the final reflection and assessment used for our Bird and Butterfly Habitat Garden. This year I will be experimenting with video reflections to compile and use during our celebration.
Reflections usually include the following information in some way: What did you do? What did it mean? What would you do in a different way next time? What would you like to do next?
Celebration
Celebration can take many forms. Celebrations can be student led and planned. The actual celebration can come in many forms, but it is very important for the team to be acknowledged for the positive impact they have made. Reflection is always a part of the celebration. In the classroom it is easy to plan a celebration party with snacks, project photos or videos. It is important to simply set aside time to be together to visit collectively about the project and enjoy your accomplishments.
Please see our Service Learning Blog to see photos of these projects examples....and many other projects in action!