Great Service Learning Ideas!!!

Some Ideas for Service Learning Projects:
These ideas were presented by my classmates. However, I did not write everyone's name down and I could not differentiate between the Megans soI gave everyone a nickname Flava Flav style.

C-Dog: Voting is not the only way to participate in a democracy. Students create podcast/video as a public service announcement. Then, students write letters to their congressmen. This projects aims to raise the students' awareness of controversial issues and instructs students how to appropriately react to them.

Zebra- This project is best demonstrated during a unit on voting rights. Students choose a subtopic to focus on and the class creates a voting rights museum. Then, students could teach younger student's about the subtopics via Skype.

Mistah- Students interview the elderly at a retirement home and learn about those people's stories. The stories are recorded and uploaded to youtube.

A-Town- getting voters registration/info- observing trends. Motivate people to vote/ learning issues.

Meemee- Service learning project that explores the issues surrounding human trafficking and purports to spread awareness of these issues. Students work in groups and answer questions about human trafficking and learn about any relevant legislation. Podcasts, slideshow, brochure are created by the students and compiled onto website as a resource. Then, students engage in letter writing to congressman to support/change legislation.

Jellybean- Students engage in a military letter writing campaign. Students create a wiki to write to military members and servicemen can write back to students.

Q-ball- Students will learning about Veteran's Day by completing a 30 min interview with a vet and will learn about their role in the war. Before interview, students will research war history. Students will record the interview via podcast. The purpose is to increase public awareness of our veteran’s contributions to society.

Germ- This project raises student awareness of the war on drugs. Students will examines the consequences, intentions, and impacts of this "war". Students will explore questions like: Should marijuana/drugs be decriminalized to generate tax revenue? Students will also evaluate how taxpayer money is spent to arrest drug offenders and maintain the prison system. Students will create a wiki that goes over the many facets of the drug war. After completing this research, students will write to their representatives.

M-Slice- This project aims to support our soldiers in a way that involves more than letter writing. Students create a website to encourage donations and send out care packages to members of the military. This is a long term project and students manage the website all year. The students will learn from soldiers about the geography of the soldiers' location and students will increase their awareness of current events.

Lizard- Project that involves Operation Christmas Child. Students will learn about different cultures that celebrate wintertime holidays. Students put together their own Christmas boxes and conduct interviews with OCC volunteers. Students will also blog about their interviews and discuss what they learned through the experience.

E!- This projects aims at improving the lives of the elderly. Students give the elderly a life satisfaction survey. Then the students teach the elderly how to use technology to communicate with their family members. After the elderly get some experience with technology, they take the life satisfaction survey again and students evaluate the effectiveness of their instruction.

Lil'J- Project aims at increasing cultural awareness. Students will learn about immigration issues and that everyone comes from somewhere else. Have students poll other students about their personal heritage like where their parents/grandparents were born. Students can create a wiki for each country of origin that they find and present their findings for school wide viewings and hopefully start a tradition of a multicultural fair.

Mellow- Project works with Habitat for Humanity. Students work with the organization and find out how much it costs to build houses and learn about cost effective methods of building homes. Students will interview families who have received homes from Habitat. Students will create a podcast/video blog to document interview.

Lady- Students will interview the elderly at a retirement home and ask questions about their daily lives. Students will also reflect on their own daily lives. Interviews will be recorded and presented via podcast. Students will celebrate the completion of the project at the nursing home and watch the interviews with the elderly.

Mako- Students are grouped and learn how to contact their representatives concerning issues of importance. Students keeps track of issues via a class wiki. Projects get students to learns about citizen participation as well as to get students to connect with their representatives. Students also make a biographical sketch of their congressman/representatives. (Storybird)

Kiki- Students go to a nursing home and ask elderly about their personal experiences. Questions asked are something like: What do you remember? How did this event shape the rest of your life? Students create videos about the individual. Videos should include details of history, historically appropriate music. Purpose is to see how people’s lives are impacted by an event in history.

Jiffy- Students learn about the environment by going to parks. Students learn about the impact of littering and help clean up parks. Students do clean up as well as raise awareness of conservation and the human impact on environment. Students will make a video psa about parks.

Grandy- Students will look at voter turnout and voting trends. Students will see how social networking sites disperse info during election times. Students will also look at how gov't affects a citizen's life over time. Students will visit a retirement home and interview elderly about their voting trends. Also look at how media affects voting habits. Class then makes a podcast of oral history and shows the project to the elderly. Students continue correspondence with elderly via letter writing.

Neeno- Students learn about becoming a responsible citizen. Students will learn about voting and campaigning and will learn about process of political action in a non controversial way. Students will analyze Google motion charts to look at trends and will record finding using blogs and wiki spaces.

An-G- Students will look at the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Students choose topic based on individual rights and research their topic. (Ex. Free speech- how we got there? What does this mean today?) Students put info on a class wiki. To get students talking to other people the class can host a 'get it right' fair and create an interactive display on their topic.

Trucker- At risk students set up a pen pal letter writing activity with Japanese students. Project aims to help students expand cultural horizons and dispel stereotypes. Students write to each other about their perspectives on World War II as a way to learn about bias. Class creates a website to explain what they have learned. Assessment: write a paper about stereotypes and bias.

Alli- Students examine newspaper articles concerning the Patriot Act. As a class, the students create a questionnaire and interview people about their knowledge concerning the Patriot Act. Students create wikis to display info and spread awareness of the federal government's powers.

C- Students research a person, place, or landmark associate with the Cold War. Students will write an article and upload it to a class wiki. Students will need to take photos and write questions to ask experts. Students will work with local newspaper to generate press and raise awareness of the community's history.

Gigi- Students will study the history and geography of Haiti. Students will network and blog with a school (most likely private school) in Haiti. Students will ask about how much their schooling cost and what it is like to go to school in Haiti. Students in US will collect money and supplies to send to schools in Haiti. Students will try to understand misconceptions about each others cultures. As a final project, students will present what was learned to the school and the community.