AmeriCorps and Service-Learning 101

This fact sheet introduces core information about service-learning to AmeriCorps members working in educational settings and looking to enhance their experience of learning through service, and for anyone interested in finding a way to increase civic engagement, academic, personal, and social outcomes of youth and students. Service-learning, like community service, emphasizes developing civic responsibility in participants, meeting authentic community needs, and creating strong collaborations with the community. Both service-learning and community service value students’ personal, social, career, and ethical growth.

Service-learning is an instructional strategy, a way of teaching classroom content, that:

• uses reflection as a means for interpreting experiences.
• can take place during the school day and on the school campus because it is integrated with school curriculum.
• emphasizes "service experiences" that take place both within and outside of the classroom.
• lends itself to group projects that engage the entire class.

Students learn best by actively doing an activity that requires them to engage in their learning and by teaching others. Service-learning is a teaching strategy that provides students with opportunities to learn while engaging in service experience which may involve teaching others. Service-learning is doing something to solve problems, where students learn how to make changes and become part of the solution; service-learning teaches civic responsibility, the ability to address societal problems in an informed, committed, and positive manner. Elementary Children in Michigan studied the relationship between environmental conditions and water quality in their area. The class then took part in planting six trees to help keep excessive storm water runoff and pollutants out of local rivers.

Middle school students in the Bronx identified bullying as the issue they wanted to tackle for their project. Because the pen is mightier than the sword, they decided to organize a poetry slam where their peers could raise a united voice against physical and emotional bullying. Some 150 students, parents and community members attended the slam, which featured poetry and skits exposing the fears and insecurities that motivate most bullies.

Cesar E. Chavez Service Club members along with AmeriCorps*VISTA members undertook a project studying poverty in their area. The goal was to educate middle school students about stereotypes and social perceptions that exist in their local community and how to overlook these perceptions and develop a respect for humanity and life. They organized a clothing drive and created hygiene kits for local members of the community that were homeless.

University students in Michigan looked for ways to support struggling local non-profit organizations during difficult economic times. Graduate communication students honed their skills while providing a wide variety of public relations services with community partners, including developing press kits and managing event coordination. Investigation
Young people begin their research on the community problems of interest.

Planning
Young people, often working with community partners, plan the ways in which they will meet the community need.

Action
All participants implement their plans by engaging in the activities that will meet the community needs. This is the actual service portion of service-learning.

Reflection
At each stage, participants engage in some form of activity that allows them to think about the community need, their actions, their impacts, what worked and did not work, and/or similar types of analytic thinking.

Demonstration/Celebration
These activities go hand in hand as young people show others, preferably in a public setting with those that have influence, what they have accomplished, what they have learned, and the impact of their work. Celebration of the learning and impact follows the demonstration. Campus Compact
Community-Campus Partnerships for Health