Local high school and middle school students paint the exterior of a childcare center as part of the Momentum Youth Conference community outreach project earlier this summer in Marion, Ind.
A study found that requiring students to participate in community service to graduate led to significant boosts in 8th grade volunteering, but actually decreased volunteering among older students.
Jameel Harris, foreground right, a senior at Cody College Prep Upper School of Teaching and Learning in Detroit, cleans up brush outside an abandoned house near his school. He and the other students are participating in the GM Student Corps, a new program sponsored by General Motors, in which they work with retired company employees on community-service projects and receive career mentoring and other instruction.
For 10 weeks, teams of high school students from the city's disadvantaged neighborhoods hold down 9-to-5 jobs with life skills and other lessons mixed in.
Global issues often play out locally. Service learning is a way students can engage in real-world issues while building the knowledge, skills, and experiences that will serve them throughout their lives. I've asked Cathryn Berger Kaye, author of The Complete Guide to Service Learning: Proven, Practical Ways to Engage Students in Civic Responsibility, Academic Curriculum, & Social Action, to share her expertise in developing a service learning program.
NASSP's Bob Farrace celebrates student service, reminding us that even as communities discuss how much they have to invest in public schools, they also derive great benefits from them.
This Friday, April 15, marks the annual Global Youth Service Day, the largest service event in the world and the only service day just for young people. The event, sponsored by Youth Service America, will go through the weekend, as millions of youths participate in more than 3,000 projects in 100 countries and all 50 states. Later this week, I'll bring you more about the event, but first I'm going to delve into some background and context on youth participation in service and service-learning today.
The Corporation for National and Community Service and a number of nonprofit organizations launched this week the third annual national "learn and serve challenge," a 9-month effort aimed to support youths to learn academics at the same time that they are serving other people.
Mary Ann Zehr, October 9, 2009
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President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama watch as former President Bill Clinton plants a tree while participating in a national service project at Kenilworth Aquatic Garden in Washington on April 21.
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