list of what people are doing for service projects

Hi All,
I'm getting fired up about starting the new year's class service work. Wondered what you've got going on in this area. I know there are some wonderful collaborations and single-class initiatives going on. Do you have or know about service projects focused on helping others, or joining together to help the land, animals, or anything else--local and global citizenship, etc?
I'll be having my upper-elementary class work in an intergenerational service project. They'll be working in an elders-home, probably teaching their partners computer and internet use.
Please tell what you're doing or thinking about doing in service work; always can use more ideas, and it'd be fun to see what people are doing!

Tags: citizenship, service+work

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on August 24, 2007 at 7:30pm

Several years ago we did a year long study on WWII. Our final objective was to interview WWII veterans, 54 of them!! You can see the project at Guardians of Freedom. It's the best work I've done as a teacher and still, 5 years later, get emails from people who have seen the site and want to contact our veterans.

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Permalink Reply by Connie Weber on August 26, 2007 at 9:30am

Candance and Nancy,
Thanks for your comments. The Donors Choose link looks vastly promising.
Nancy, your Guardians of Freedom project is a wonderful example, an inspiring model. I'm going to show it to my students. Congratulations on having accomplished such important work!

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on August 26, 2007 at 4:25pm

Thanks for the kudos, we did another big project this year that had a primary sources connection, we compiled the database of people buried at a local cemetery along with researching burial customs and other cemetery related topics. We wrote a grant and did CSI:Cemetery Scene Investigation

I feel that NCLB has taken all the time and creativity out of many regular ed classrooms, I'm lucky that working in a special education program for gifted kids allow us the time to pursue things in depth. I think TIME is going to be the key in integrating the Web 2.0 tools in the classroom, too. N.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Hargadon on August 28, 2007 at 9:44am

I'm amazed, as usual, by Nancy's responses.

I have been taken by the idea of recording public-domain materials/books for others. I love listening to books on tapes, etc., and I could see this being a great student-to-student project. There was an earlier forum post on helping a blind student in a class in this way. (And I'm a little behind in my RSS reading, as I see you've been talking about this again!)

I also like an idea that Nancy's work reminded me of, which is the recording of the life stories of those in nursing homes. Somewhere I have this exhaustive list of life-history questions that can be asked--I went through them with my dad using a recorder some years ago, then burned it to a CD rom to share with my family. I'd be glad to find and share if it's of interest. (Ha! I keep having to come back and modify this message, as I'm reading so much more that you've already written on this recently! Big smile!)

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Permalink Reply by Ed Jones on August 28, 2007 at 12:18pm

Any of you are welcome to contribute to help others learn history at OpenHistoryProject.org. There are many different ways to contribute; you just need a love of online, interactive history, and a basic ability to edit a wiki.

Of course, if you live near Carrollton, I have a park and a hike/bike trail you can help build, but if transportation is an issue, jump in to help share the stories!

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Permalink Reply by Connie Weber on August 29, 2007 at 1:19pm

Steve, you're right that getting life-history stories going is very powerful. Yes--dig up those questions, that exhaustive list! Maybe we can post it and get additions to what should be asked. This would be perfect for podcasting--and most importantly,heart-felt education.

Ed, OpenHistoryProject is astonishingly cool. Thanks so much for sharing that link!