West Elementary School
Social Emotional Learning - Learn to Serve
As part of a multi million dollar grant, West School is currently working on the Learn to Serve Project in conjunction with the New York State Department of Education, Albion School District, and the City College of New York. It is a curriculum project that connects character education and service learning. Two classes in our school are participating in this project, Mrs. Parks' first graders and Mrs. Samson's fourth graders. We will be chronicling their efforts on this web site. Click on the links below to find out what they will be doing. We have also included some sites you may wont to visit about character education and service learning.
Serving With Character Site-All About the Learn to Serve Projects
Mrs. Parks' First Grade Class Project
Recycling Hundreds of Bottles and Cans
You know the song, "One hundred bottles of pop on the wall, a hundred bottles of pop..." Well, Mrs. Parks' first graders have been busily recycling hundred of bottles and cans over these past few months. Mrs. Parks' class project involved recycling and then using the money for a community organization. During the collection process, students actively worked on sorting the bottles and cans by type and carefully counting them by 2's, 5's, and 10's. Then, as a group, Ms. Parks' and her students walked to the neighborhood soda distributor and "cashed in" their recyclables. The money raised for this project is going to help support the Theresa Foundation, specifically to help build a outside playground area for handicapped children.
Mrs. Samson's Class Project
Healthy Bodies Make Healthy Minds
Mrs. Samson's fourth graders have made nutrition the focus of their Learn to Serve project. In their class they learned about the food pyramid and how they can should be more selective on the snacks they choose to eat. This was then extended to the investigation of food labels and the contents, calorie and fat counts found in our most favorite foods.
Students traveled to the local supermarket to find out the nutritional values of their favorite foods and the food we collected for our food drive. Students also calculated the price and the price per item for items they would include in their food donation bags. When the students returned to school they created food pyramids and developed food bags that would address all of the necessary food groups.
Character Education Sites
Service Learning Sites
Service-learning combines service objectives with learning objectives with the intent that the activity change both the recipient and the provider of the service. This is accomplished by combining service tasks with structured opportunities that link the task to self-reflection, self-discovery, and the acquisition and comprehension of values, skills, and knowledge content
For example, if school students collect trash out of an urban streambed, they are providing a service to the community as volunteers; a service that is highly valued and important. When school students collect trash from an urban streambed, then analyze what they found and possible sources so they can share the results with residents of the neighborhood along with suggestions for reducing pollution, they are engaging in service-learning. In the service-learning example, the students are providing an important service to the community AND, at the same time, learning about water quality and laboratory analysis, developing an understanding of pollution issues, learning to interpret science issues to the public, and practicing communications skills by speaking to residents.
To find out more about service learning, take look at these sites and the wonderful service learning projects that are happening across America and in our own backyard: