Discovering Service Learning Projects

I am thrilled to be collaborating with the Boys & Girls Club for my service learning project. I e-mailed the Waterloo Unit Director, Ashley Stewart, proposing an interview in the near future with her volunteer coordinator. At this interview, I would like to discuss the ways that the Boys & Girls Club uses mentorship as a tool to build communities. I will use this information to formulate a secondary level lesson plan targeting mentor and leadership roles. This lesson plan will incorporate service learning through social service with the organization. While the specifics of my project have not been laid out, my objectives for this lesson are that students review mentorship in their own lives before experiencing the impact of being a mentor firsthand. I am partial to using the media of photography or clay, similar to the Finding Oral Culture and Urban Stories or Eco-Wall of Hope projects from our Art Education for Social Justice textbook. Key ideas I am keeping in mind while planning my service learning project are: discovering the needs of the population I am working with, ensuring both sides gain something significant from the experience, building art skills in the process, and the students reflecting on what they learned. Confidently hitting these four targets will justify my lesson's creation, and demonstrate the value of using service learning in the classroom.