Advancing Service-Learning Through Program Evaluation

Recognizing the need to provide students with a richer experience that more effectively ties courser objectives to agency needs, faculty of the Recreation Administration and Leisure Studies (RLS) Program at California State University, Fresno (CSU Fresno), created a partnership with staff from the Fresno County Office of Education (FCOE). Specifically, this partnership was created with one FCOE department, the Department of Safe and Healthy Kids. This department sponsors a wide variety of cocurricular programs focusing on the serious health issues of students in Fresno County. This partnership was formed to jointly identify and investigate projects that attempt to mitigate the health problems of K-12 students through recreation and physical activity programs.

This chapter describes the resulting project-- the evaluation of an adventure race-- from both the RLS and the FCOE perspectives. The authors highlight the strenghts and weaknesses of the project, its relationship to the health of the children, and its contribution to service-learning literature. The chapter begins with a review of relevant service-learning literature, followed by an introduction to both the RLS program and the FCOR and an overview of student health in Fresno County. (authors)