Washington State Sustainable Design Project, Evaluation of Year 1: 2009-2010

The Sustainable Design Project (SDP) is a Washington statewide systemic initiative that involves students in meaningful service-learning that will benefit their communities through programs that foster environmental stewardship, economic viability, and social equity. The authors wanted to assess the effectiveness of SDP in meeting its intended outcomes. The purpose was to find out how involvement in service-learning affected students' attitudes toward volunteering and civic engagement, to get students' perspectives on their experience planning and implementing service-learning projects, and to learn from their suggestions on how the projects can be further improved. From those community partners working with schools on service-learning, the authors wanted to learn how well the partnerships were working, and factors that contribute to partnership success. Finally, the authors wanted to gauge teachers' responses to their involvement in SDP initiatives and assess their needs for ongoing professional development and support. The authors utilized online surveys, site visits, and telephone interviews to gather data from these three groups. The results of these evaluation studies of students, teachers, and community partners are presented in this report, along with conclusions on best practices and recommendations for Year 2 of the project.