Teachers can use Service Learning to make abstract subjects real for students of all ages.
There are some issues that are difficult to address but important to learn about. Take poverty, for example, people around the world who live in ‘extreme poverty’. And health care in other countries – so many people who have no access to proper medicine or service. But how do you teach these topics to students? By reiterating numbers and facts? What if you could turn those figures into something more than just numbers, by getting students truly involved with the issue? Service Learning, where classroom instruction is supported by activities to help the community, aims to achieve exactly this.
The ISD Service Learning program is built in the school curriculum, assignments and assessments. In this project students chose migration issues from around the world, researched the topic and organizations that support that issue. Students then designed a presentation to advocate and educate grade 10’s and promote how to “get involved” with their issue and chosen organization.
The ISD service and sustainability learning program plays a crucial role in helping our students to become knowledgeable, skilled, creative and internationally minded agents of positive change.
