Course Standards
General Course Information and Notes
General Notes
This course provides an introduction to service-learning and civic responsibility. Academic, personal, and career skills needed for effective service-learning project implementation will be taught and applied through structured service projects that meet real school and/or community needs. Students will actively participate in meaningful service-learning experiences of at least 20 hours' duration.The content should include, but not be limited to, the following:
- Students, working individually or in small or large groups, will investigate, quantify, and choose among issues and needs that can be addressed.
- Students will design and then implement one or more service-learning projects to address identified needs through direct, indirect, advocacy, or research-focused action. Projects will involve meaningful partnerships.
- Students will conduct reflection activities to measure and record information about the service-learning activities and their impacts.
- Students will demonstrate KSAs (knowledge, skills, or abilities) gained from projects through project-developed products and public presentations that educate others about the needs/issues addressed, activities conducted, impacts measured, and/or how others can also meet needs through service.
Mathematics Benchmark Guidance - Social Studies instruction should include opportunities for students to interpret and create representations of historical events and concepts using mathematical tables, charts, and graphs.
Language Arts benchmarks are addressed as students read, write, create documents, and make public presentations about needs and activities to address them. Social Studies benchmarks include analyzing community issues, coming up with solutions, and conducting service projects. Math benchmarks are met as students chart and graph data as part of issue investigation, project design, demonstration, and/or reflection. Health and Physical Education are addressed as projects include discussion and learning related to safety, liability, interpersonal skills, conflict avoidance, appraising outcomes and impacts on others, maintaining appropriate behavior, etc., in the students' interaction with others.
After successfully completing this course, the student will:
- Demonstrate an understanding of service-learning, the types of service-learning, and its importance in a participatory democracy.
- Demonstrate the ability to identify school/community needs and propose solutions that can be implemented through service-learning.
- Demonstrate the ability to identify and analyze different points of view to gain an understanding of diverse backgrounds and perspectives and their value.
- Demonstrate the ability to investigate significant needs, plan and implement service-learning projects to address them, evaluate project effectiveness, and present the information to an authentic audience.
- Demonstrate use of effective self-assessment and reflection strategies (e.g., verbal, written, artistic, and non-verbal activities to demonstrate learning, understanding, and changes in students' knowledge, skills and/or abilities).
- Demonstrate effective use of facilitative communication skills (e.g., writing, speaking, listening, questioning, paraphrasing, non-verbal communication, non-judgmental response).
- Provide documentation of activities and the minimum 20 hours of participation in an approved service-learning project.
General Information
Student Resources
Original Student Tutorials
Learn how arguments are formed with claims, reasons, and evidence. In this interactive tutorial, you'll read several short speeches from students hoping to be elected president of the Student Council. We'll trace the claim made by each student and the reasons and evidence they use to support it.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Investigate the limiting factors of a Florida ecosystem and describe how these limiting factors affect one native population-the Florida Scrub-Jay-with this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn what genetic engineering is and some of the applications of this technology. In this interactive tutorial, you’ll gain an understanding of some of the benefits and potential drawbacks of genetic engineering. Ultimately, you’ll be able to think critically about genetic engineering and write an argument describing your own perspective on its impacts.
Type: Original Student Tutorial