Service Learning and Volunteering
Number of unique resources found: 48
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America's Promise: The Alliance for Youth
Description: America's Promise - The Alliance for Youth is a not-for-profit organization that is building and strengthening the character and competence of youth by mobilizing the nation to fulfill Five Promises.
Description: Americorps, the domestic Peace Corps, engages more than 40,000 Americans in intensive, results-driven service each year. AmeriCorps members train volunteers, tutor and mentor at-risk youth, build housing, clean up rivers and streams, help seniors live independently, provide emergency and long-term assistance to victims of natural disasters, and meet other community needs.
Description: Youth as Resources (YAR) is a philosophy and a program that recognizes youth as valuable community resources and engages them as partners with adults in bringing about positive community change. The three principles of YAR are youth-adult partnership in governance, youth as grantmakers, and youth-led service .
Description: The First Book National Book Bank is the first centralized system enabling publishers to donate large quantities of books to the non-profit sector for distribution to children from low-income families participating in community-based programs nationwide. Founded to utilize the large volume of children's books publishers generously offer First Book for donation each year, the First Book National Book Bank delivers books through First Book's established supply pipeline to children from low-income families across the country. The First Book National Book Bank serves as a distribution system to national and local non-profit organizations reaching the broadest spectrum of children in need. This site helps visitors get involved in distribution programs and promotes program growth.
Description: Action Without Borders connects people, organizations and resources to help build a world where all people can live free and dignified lives. The site contains over 48,000 nonprofit and community organizations in 165 countries, which you can search or browse by name, location or mission. In addition, there are links to volunteer opportunities.
Description: This publication answers the question, "what would it take to make service-learning part of every student's education experience?" based on the Education Commission of the States' work as part of Learning In Deed: Making a Difference Through Service-Learning.
National Service-Learning Clearinghouse
Description: The Learn & Serve America National Service-Learning Clearinghouse is a comprehensive information system that focuses on all dimensions of service-learning, covering kindergarten through higher education school-based as well as community based initiatives.
National Youth Leadership Council
Description: The National Youth Leadership Council's mission is to build vital, just communities with young people through service-learning. As one of America's most prominent advocates of service-learning and youth service, the NYLC is at the forefront of efforts to reform education and guide youth-oriented public policy.
Description: Training, products, and services designed for youth and those who work with youth.
Description: Sages of the Ages: Stories that Touch and Teach is a collaborative project of the University of Maryland Extension, the School of Public Health, the Department of Family Science, and the Maryland Family Community Education organization. This curriculum benefits youth, adults in their middle years, and older adults by fostering a variety of experiences, including storytelling, project leadership, and community engagement.
The goals of SAges of the Ages are:
-To build resilience capacity through intergenerational storytelling
-To foster the development of important life skills
-To encourage community involvement and help teens make a difference in the lives of other people
-To promote interaction between teens and older adults.
Description: SERVEnet, users can enter their zip code, city, state, skills, interests, and availability and be matched with organizations needing help. SERVEnet is also a place to search for calendar events, job openings, service news, recommended books, and best practices. YSA's commitment to America's Promise is to have volunteer opportunities on SERVEnet for every zip code in America.
The Edward Ginsberg Center for Community Service and Learning
Description: The Edward Ginsberg Center for Community Service and Learning is home to multiple community learning programs, including Academic Service Learning, America Reads Tutoring Corps, Michigan Community Service Corps, Michigan Neighborhood AmeriCorps Program, Project Community, and Project SERVE. The Ginsberg Center also houses the OCSL Press which produces the annual Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning. Through these programs and publications, the Ginsberg Center hopes to engage students, faculty members, university staff, and community partners in a process which combines community service and academic learning in order to promote civic participation, build community capacity, and enhance the educational process.
Description: The United Nations Volunteers programme (UNV) was created by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1970 to serve as an operational partner in development cooperation at the request of UN member states. It is unique within the UN family and as an international volunteer undertaking. It reports to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and works through UNDP's country offices around the world.
Description: What Kids Can Do is a national nonprofit organization. They document the value of young people working with teachers and other adults on projects that combine powerful learning with public purpose for an audience of educators and policy makers, journalists, community members, and students.
Description: Youth Challenge International combines community development, health work and environmental research in adventurous projects carried out by teams of volunteers aged 16-28 years.
Description: YOUTH SERVICE AMERICA (YSA) is a resource center and the premier alliance of 200+ organizations committed to increasing the quantity and quality of opportunities for young Americans to serve locally, nationally, or globally.
– Evaluation –
Author: Polk, Roselyn (8 more by this author)
Description: Literature review, measures and bibliography on youth and social responsibility.
– General Information –
Author: English, Patricia
Description: California Focus provides an opportunity for 4-H high school students and leaders, in county teams from across California, to participate in a civic engagement program focused on California government and history. Using current youth development research to guide program development, including civic engagement research as well as a positive youth development program model, a team of staff and 4-H leaders provide a dynamic, experiential program designed to increase understanding of the three branches of government and individual citizenship rights and responsibilities.
The goal is to enthuse, enable, and empower teens to be active, positive contributors to their communities. The program is designed to:Observe units of government in action; Learn about and simulate the legislative, executive, and judicial branches; Study geography, history, and culture; Experience access to government decision makers; and Learn that each person can make a positive impact.
Evaluation results show that youth participants gain communication, leadership, and social skills, and come away from conference not only with a better understanding of governmental processes but with a new awareness of how they can be responsible citizens. The year following conference, delegates carry out a service project to meet a need in their community. The program is impacting local communities through this important community development work.
Description: A website for the Points of Light Foundation. The Foundation’s mission is to engage people in volunteer community service to help solve serious social problems.
Service-Learning: A Basic Preview 
Description: A slide show describing service-learning
Toward An Understanding of Youth In Community Governance
Author: Zeldin, Shepherd (4 more by this author); Linda Camino, Matthew Calvert
Description: For more than a decade, many researchers and practitioners have endorsed a positive youth development approach which views adolescents as active contributors to their own development and as assets to their communities. As part of this shift, youth are increasingly being invited to engage in community governance. Youth are making strong contributions to advisory boards and planning councils, and are integrally involved in key day-to-day functions such as program design, budgeting, outreach, public relations, training, and evaluation.
Description: A data brief about volunteering among adolescents.
Description: This document provides facts and statistics about youth volunteering. Volunteer activity among twelfth grade students continued to increase between 2000 and 2001, with the percent who reported volunteering once a month or more increasing from 32 to 35 percent. Among students in the eighth and tenth grades, rates did not change significantly.
– Other Resources –
Description: Global Youth Service Day 2013 is April 26-28. This site contains resources related to the 25th anniversary of Global Youth Service Day, April 26-28, 2013.
– Professional Development –
LEARNING TO GIVE: Teaching the Importance of Voluntary Action
Description: Learning to Give seeks to perpetuate a civil society by educating children about the independent sector (knowledge), developing behavior and philanthropic experience (skills), and, stimulating private voluntary citizen action for the common good (behavior). This site contains lesson plans and teaching materials.
Description: A website for the Points of Light Foundation. The Foundation’s mission is to engage people in volunteer community service to help solve serious social problems.
The Means to Grow Up: Reinventing Apprenticeship as a Developmental Support in Adolescence
Author: Halpern, Robert (1 more by this author)
Description: In The Means to Grow Up, Robert Halpern describes the pedagogical importance of apprenticeship...a growing movement based in schools, youth-serving organizations, and arts, civic, and other cultural institutions. This movement aims to re-engage youth through in-depth learning and unique experiences under the guidance of skilled professionals. Employing a pedagogy of apprenticeship, these experiences combine specific, visceral, and sometimes messy work with opportunity for self-expression, increasing responsibility, and exposure to the adult world.
– Programming Resource –
Benefits2: Service Learning: A Strategy for rural school improvement and community revitalization
Description: Benefits2: Service Learning: A Strategy for rural school improvement and community revitalization is the second of a series of SEDL issue papers dedicated to discussing ways in which rural communities and schools can work together to guarantee their students receive the best education possible.
LEARNING TO GIVE: Teaching the Importance of Voluntary Action
Description: Learning to Give seeks to perpetuate a civil society by educating children about the independent sector (knowledge), developing behavior and philanthropic experience (skills), and, stimulating private voluntary citizen action for the common good (behavior). This site contains lesson plans and teaching materials.
Mission of the Month: Capturing History- The making of a documentary
Author: Dunham, Trudy (32 more by this author); Jay Staker
Description: Who are you, really? Have your skills and interests been passed down from your parents or grandparents? Where did the habits and customs of today’s American society come from? There is more to one’s history – the history of family and community – than your DNA and the names of your ancestors. What you do and how you do it is an important part of your family history. Take the time to find out how you became who you are today. Interview your family members about one aspect of life or culture that interests you. If talking to family isn’t convenient, use this as an opportunity to learn how your neighborhood became what it is today!
Mission of the Month: Down the Drain
Author: Dunham, Trudy (4 more by this author); Jay Staker
Description: Water - it is essential to life. But to fulfill its essential rule, the water must be "quality". This means that the water must be clean enough so you and other plants and animals can drink it without getting sick. And have sufficient oxygen to support our plants and fish that live under water. We don't always recognize how much our individual behavior and our life style affects water quality. When we put something 'down the drain' either in our homes or in our streets, we impact our water. National Youth Science Day will focus on water quality and its connection to climate change this year. As you prepare for that activity, here are some additional activities and resources to support the learning about our water cycle and how we impact water quality in our communities and the world.
Natural Helpers: A Peer Helping Program
Description: A description of Michigan 4-H sponsored Natural Helpers®, which is a peer-helping program for middle, junior high and high school communities. It is based on the premise that within every school, an informal "helping network" of students and school personnel exists.
One Seed at a Time: Alleviating Climate Change through Youth Community Action in the Garden
Description: One Seed at a Time is a model project for how teams of children, youth and adults working in partnership can make a difference in their communities through sustainable gardening practices.
Policy Education and Civic Engagement (PEACE) Curriculum
Author: Rebori, Marlene (5 more by this author)
Description: A unique civic engagement curriculum rooted in community development that teaches public deliberation skills. PEACE is intended to help make the process of teaching citizenship, public deliberation and civic engagement more enjoyable and youth driven. PEACE is comprised of six lessons and designed as scaffolds, where each lesson is used to build into the next lesson.
Description: The Read To Me project was started by two 4-H members who wanted to plan a community-service project that a lot of young people could do. They saw a storybook apron being used to read to young children, and decided this was something they could do. They held workshops for other teens to learn how to make and use storybook aprons. The teens then went out on their own and read to children. Two years ago a Read To Me design team was formed to plan and implement activities across the state. They made it possible for teens not involved in 4-H clubs to participate in the Read To Me project. The design team also created training material that is now a complete training manual. The fourteen-member group consists of teens, college students and adults from various schools and occupations. Its members are responsible for obtaining funding for supplies and other resources and for managing those monies.
Semester of Service Strategy Guide
Description: YSA’s Semester of Service™ is an extended service-learning framework through which students apply what they are learning in the classroom to address real-world needs in their communities. As a school-based program, Semester of Service is recommended for K-12 educators and their students.
Service Learning 2: Raise Your Voice
Description: A no-nonsense guide for older youth introduces service learning as an empowering learning vehicle for young leaders. Voices of real young people engaged in service inspire and enable youth to identify with others. Grade: 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th
Service Learning: Helper's Guide
Description: Guide for leaders offers group service learning activities like community mapping, identifying group roles and teaching journaling. Offers advice tailored to help mentors seeking to lead youth through enriching learning experiences.
Description: An online jeopardy game about service-learning.
Survivor to Thriver: Doing Community-Based Service Learning
Author: Mark, Cynthia
Description: Survivor - Thriver five step model for community service learning. Presentation materials including transcript from a 2006 Webinar. 4-H has a history of community involvement through community service. Learn how to take food drives and river clean-ups to the next level! Engage young people in the decision making process and learn how to turn the activities into a civic engagement and social action project.
Tapping Into Your Millennial Volunteer Base
Author: Gamble, Susan; Zona Hutson; Kimberly Colebank, West Virginia University Center for Civic Engagement; Stacey Harper ; Ruthellen Phillips
Description: This research-based workshop provides an understanding of the characteristics and traits of Millennial teens. Discover the secrets of recruiting, motivating, guiding and supporting rural and low-income Millennial volunteers. This interactive workshop provides key strategies to unlocking the volunteer potential of today's youth. (2008 CYFAR Conference Presentation)
YOUth Changing the World: A Service Project Toolkit
Description: This guide will help youth take action on an issue that is important to them, to discover their power to change the world through their own actions. This guide takes youth step-by-step through the process of identifying a community need to address, and of planning, implementing, reflecting upon, showcasing, and celebrating their service project.
YOUth in the Driver Seat: A Teen Driver Safety Semester of Service
Description: YOUth in the Driver Seat: A Teen Driver Safety Semester of Service™ is designed to support high school students and their classroom teachers, service-learning coordinators, road safety educators, and student advisors in community and youth development organizations through the development and implementation of a semester-long youth-led teen driver safety service-learning program. The guide intentionally positions students themselves as problem-solvers, educators, and leaders in addressing teen driver safety, and positions adult educators and advisors as program facilitators.
Youth Serve America No Kid Hungry Guide
Description: This guide will help you create and organize a childhood hunger service project in your community, as well as provide you with tips and suggestions on how to get others involved.
– Research –
Description: In this narrated presentation, Hans DeBruyn of the University of Rochester offers an overview of civic engagement and its connection to social capital in the U.S. (25 minutes)
Encouraging Civic Engagement: How Teens Are (or Are Not) Becoming Responsible Citizens
Author: Zaff, Jonathan (1 more by this author); Erik Michelsen
Description: Child Trends conducted a review of 60 studies on civic engagement. This review focuses particularly on studies that pertain to political involvement and volunteerism. This Research Brief brings together key findings from those studies.
Research Spotlight: Apprenticeship and Authentic Learning
Author: Nordby, Ann (24 more by this author)
Description: One researcher argues that apprenticeship fits well with youth development not because it teaches workforce preparedness, but because it offers an authentic learning experience.
Author: Schantz, Karen (1 more by this author); Nathalie Louge
Description: This article provides an overview of service-learning, including a summary of benefits to youth, and principles to guide the design of service-learning programs.
The impact of participation in service-learning on high school students' civic engagement
Author: Billig, Shelley
Description: This study compared more than 1,000 high school students who participated in service-learning programs with those who did not participate in schools matched for similar demographics and
student achievement profiles. The intention was to estimate the effects of service-learning compared to more traditional ways of teaching similar subject areas. The outcomes measured
ranged from civic knowledge, behaviors, and dispositions to school engagement factors, such as attachment to school and enjoyment of coursework, that generally predict academic success.
Author: Kirshner, Ben
Description: In this CYFAR conference invited research presentation, Ben Kirshner addresses why and how youth-adult partnerships promote resiliency and civic engagement. Contrary to myths in the media, young people yearn to connect with real roles in the community and develop relationships with adults who show them pathways to adulthood. Young people are knowledgeable about what is and isn’t working in their environment. Everyone benefits when youth are invited to participate in decisions. He provides examples of successful youth-adult partnerships that engage youth in decision-making and public action, and discusses strategies for youth-adult partnerships in your own communities.