Academic Service Learning
Project Planner
Teacher(s): Brian Conway, Alissa Huggins, Janene Parney, Julie Davis, Jaime Bellant, Cassandra McClain, Emily Milanowski
Main Contact: Brian Conway Email:
Date: 10/9/12 Building: Godfrey-Lee Middle School Grade Level: 7th
First Trimester: X Second Trimester: X Third Trimester: X
Name of Project: Rebel C.A.R.E.S.
(Community Awareness, Resources, & Environmental Support)
Project Overview
Give a brief overview of the project you are planning.
School and community beautification:
- Use plants for water filtration at downspouts
- Use native plants to create learning environments on school grounds
- Courtyard, front lawn, back parking lot, sides of school near gym and portables, and 6th grade campus
- Create a mosaic on wall (corner of Lee and Cleveland)
- Work with Wyoming Parks and Recreations for park cleanup and landscape additions.
Effective Practice: MEANINGFUL SERVICE
Service learning actively engages participants in meaningful and personally relevant service activities.
What community need will you address and how did you determine the need?
-The school community needs alternative learning environments in order to meet the multiple intelligences.
-To develop environmental awareness and community pride students will be making over the school grounds and local parks.
What service will you provide to address the need?
-Creating clean groundwater for the neighborhood.
-Making over the school and park landscapes and incorporating plants native to Michigan.
Effective Practice: LINK TO CURRICULUM
Service learning is intentionally used as an instructional strategy to meet learning goals and/or content standards.
How is this project related to your curriculum?
- SOCIAL STUDIES: Identify and analyze public issues. Citizen involvement.
- SCIENCE: Human impact on environment.
- MATH: Scale drawings, proportions, graphing and statistics.
- ELA: Argumentative writing, compare and contrast (essays)
- TECHNOLOGY: Documentation throughout project. Photographic journal.
- ART: Create mural (mosaic)
- LANGUAGES: Create community contacts in Spanish and English
- CHARACTER EDUCATION: Responsibility of Citizenship and Respect for Community
- CAREER PATHWAYS: Recycling, landscaping, journalism
- HEALTH/PHYS ED: Use pedometers to track steps through community, heart rate monitoring, and healthy foods (planting)
What are the educational goals?
Creating students who are well-rounded, responsible citizens in their school and city communities.
Curriculum Crafter Connections
English Language Arts:
Strand: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.7.1a
TLW: Introduce claim(s), acknowledge alternate or opposing claims, and organize the reasons and evidence logically.
Strand: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.7.2
TLW: Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas, concepts, and information through the selection, organization, and analysis of relevant content.
Strand: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.7.3
TLW:Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, relevant descriptive details, and well-structured event sequences.
Strand: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.7.5
TLW: With some guidance and support from peers and adults, develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach, focusing on how well purpose and audience have been addressed.
Strand: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.7.6
TLW: Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing and link to and cite sources as well as to interact and collaborate with others, including linking to and citing sources.
Additional State Standards and Benchmarks
List standards and benchmarks met by this project.
Social Studies
Strand: P3 Identifying and Analyzing Issues, Decision Making, Persuasive Communication About a Public Issue, and Citizen Involvement
●7 – P3.1.1 Clearly state an issue as a question or public policy, trace the origins of an issue, analyze and synthesize various perspectives, and generate and evaluate alternative resolutions.
○Use inquiry methods to acquire content knowledge and appropriate data about the issue.
○Identify the causes and consequences and analyze the impact, both positive and negative.
○Share and discuss findings of research and issue analysis in group discussions and debates.
○Compose a persuasive essay justifying the position with a reasoned argument.
○Develop an action plan to address or inform others about the issue at the local to global scales.
Strand: P4 Citizen Involvement: Act constructively to further the public good.
●7– P4.2.2 Engage in activities intended to contribute to solving a national or international problem studied.
●7 – P4.2.3 Participate in projects to help or inform others (e.g., service learning projects)
●7 – P4.2.1 Demonstrate knowledge of how, when, and where individuals would plan and conduct activities intended to advance views in matters of public policy, report the results, and evaluate effectiveness.
Math
Standard: N.FL.07.05
TLW: Solve proportion problems using such methods as unit rate, scaling, finding equivalent fractions, and solving the proportion equation a/b = c/d; know how to see patterns about proportional situations in tables.*
Standard:G.TR.07.04
TLW: Solve problems about similar figures and scale drawings.
Standard: A.PR.07.02
TLW: Represent directly proportional and linear relationships using verbal descriptions, tables, graphs, and formulas, and translate among these representations.
Standard: D.RE.07.01
TLW: Represent and interpret data using circle graphs, stem and leaf plots, histograms, and box-and-whisker plots, and select appropriate representation to address specific questions.
Science
Standard: E.ES.M.4 Human Consequences
Human activities have changed the land, oceans, and atmosphere of the Earth
resulting in the reduction of the number and variety of wild
plants and animals, sometimes causing extinction of species.
●E.ES.07.41 Explain how human activities (surface mining,
deforestation, overpopulation, construction and urban
development, farming, dams, landfills, and restoring
natural areas) change the surface of the Earth and
affect the survival of organisms.
●E.ES.07.42 Describe the origins of pollution in the atmosphere,
geosphere, and hydrosphere, (car exhaust, industrial
emissions, acid rain, and natural sources), and how
pollution impacts habitats, climatic change, threatens
or endangers species.
Effective Practice: REFLECTION
Service learning incorporates multiple challenging reflection activities that are ongoing and that prompt deep thinking and analysis about oneself and one’s relationship to society.
What form(s) of reflection will you use with the students to help them identify what they have learned and accomplished?
Reflection for each core subject area:
- Journal
- Concept mapping
- Newsletter article
- Create service learning project for 7th grade newsletter
- Showcase for the community what the project consists of
Effective Practice: DIVERSITY
Service learning promotes understanding of diversity and mutual respect among all participants.
What types of diverse perspectives and experiences will be explored as part of your project?
(i.e.: cultural, generational, abilities/disabilities, learning styles, etc.)
-Physical ability, learning style (split up students by learning style/interest), cultural.
-The perspective will be broadened from the school community to the
Community-at-large.
Effective Practice: YOUTH VOICE
Service learning provides youth with a strong voice in planning, implementing, and evaluating service learning experiences with guidance from adults.
How will students gain ownership of the project?
-Ownership has already been established because of their recycling project last year.This
is a broader aspect of last year’s project and they already have ownership of the idea
improving the environment.
-Use newsletter/videos to give updates → make career connections and advocate for
social activism. Put on district or class websites.
Or use announcements → pictures
Ownership will come through student products.
-Students will be involved in planning, implementing, and sustaining the project.
-They will be responsible for finishing the project.
Effective Practice: RECIPROCAL PARTNERSHIPS
Service learning partnerships are collaborative, mutually beneficial, and address community needs.
Who will you partner with for this project?
-Wyoming Parks and Recreation
-Blanford Nature Center
-Landscaping company (potentially)
-City of Wyoming (and Grand Rapids)
-Community Media Center (video production)
How will students benefit from this partnership?
-They will make career connections with the mentor agencies
-They will connect with the real-world experiences outside of the classroom
How will the partner benefit from this collaboration?
-Beautification of environment (clean-up)
-Landscape additions of Wyoming Parks
Effective Practice: PROGRESS MONITORING
Service learning engages participants in an ongoing process to assess the quality of implementation and progress toward meeting specified goals, and uses results for improvement and sustainability.
How will you assess the student learning goals?
-Standards-based assessment (formative/summative)
How will you assess your service goals?
-Students will reflect on their experiences and involvement in the project and evaluate their participation in the service learning project.
Effective Practice: DURATION AND INTENSITY
Service learning has sufficient duration and intensity to address community needs and meet specified outcomes.
How will you prepare students for this experience?
-By integrating service learning into our curriculum and discussing it with them on a
regular basis.
What are some sample possible activities students might do as part of this project?
-Students examine human impact on the environment (pollution issues).
-Students can explore the proportional relationship between small and large scale
projects.
-Students can understand the responsibilities of being a good citizen and identifying public issues.
-Students can create informative and argumentative texts to inform the community about their project (newsletter and video)
SUSTAINABILITY
The three arms of sustainability are environmental stewardship, economic growth, and social progress. Think planet, profit, and people.
Describe how your project addresses the issue of sustainability?
-We will use perennial plants in the courtyard that are easy to maintain. We will also use
river rock instead of mulch because it is more sustainable. The plants will continue to filter the water long after our students graduate.
- The benches in parks will serve as a reminder to students of their work for years to come, and the public will continue to use them for many years.
StoneShores 2010