Diverse group of teenagers holding filled trash bags, yard tools, and other cleaning materials smiling at their successful community pickup.

Create Grade-Level Hands-on Student Projects: Engaging & Connecting Students with Their Community

Inflexion January 16, 2021

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The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members.

– Coretta Scott King

INTRO

Create grade-level projects or capstones that give students the opportunity to do hands-on work in the community. These can be set up as projects students choose on their own, or opportunities set up through community partnerships with organizations like Habitat for Humanity or a local community center.

THINK skills and behaviors are often grounded in critical thinking and inquiry. Examples include: ideation, creativity, innovation, and design thinking. Ultimately, THINK is about approaching situations and ideas with versatile and intentional thinking patterns.

OBJECTIVES

Brainstorm and start planning for how your school can connect students with their community through hands-on projects

Involve students in the process to really ensure the experience is relevant to them and that they’re engaged

RESOURCE LINKS

DO SOMETHING C SITE: 73 Community Service Project Ideas

PDF: THINK

ACTIVITY

Create grade-level projects that give students the opportunity to do hands-on work in the community.

These can be set up as projects students choose on their own, or opportunities set up through community partnerships with organizations like Habitat for Humanity or a local community center.

Can’t think of ideas? Check out the linked resource from Do Something for 73 different ideas to get you started.

TIPS

Key Moves are efforts that require a bit of planning, but can be implemented within the next 3-6 months

Like this activity? Check out Inflexion’s full-page THINK document for more ideas.

Categories: Toolkit

Tags: 21st Century Readiness, Project Based Learning (PBL's), Student Empowerment, Student Experience

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INTRO

OBJECTIVES

RESOURCE LINKS

ACTIVITY

TIPS

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