As part of a service learning project, Regina Brinker and her students at Christensen Middle School in Livermore, California, coordinated a creek cleanup at a local nature preserve. Photo by Regina Brinker.
Service learning can provide teachers a real-life, hands-on application of knowledge that answers the eternal student question, “When are we ever going to use this?” The National Service-Learning Clearinghouse defines service learning as “a teaching and learning strategy that integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibility, and strengthen communities.” (See www.servicelearning.org/what-service-learning.) While service learning can be used to teach many subjects, it has a special relevance for science classes.
“Combining community service projects with science teaching gives students an opportunity for interesting, authentic learning; teaches them about good citizenship; and connects them with adults and peers. These projects may not only increase students’ interest in science, but also make a difference for students at risk of failing science or dropping out of school altogether,” says Steve Metz, field editor of The Science Teacher, NSTA’s journal for high school teachers.
“Service learning allows students to use dimensions of science literacy,” observe James McDonald and Thomas Kromer in “Service Learning: A Way to Connect Science to the Community” (Science Scope, April/May 2005). “They can construct new knowledge by researching the topic of their project and making decisions about how the project can help others. In other words, students construct knowledge by determining how a science issue affects other people.”
Kari Murad, who teaches immunology, microbiology, and pathology at the College of Saint Rose in Albany, New York, turned to service learning when she realized “no matter how riveting my lectures or how engaging my labs, there was still a portion of students not understanding why the science I was teaching was important.” In an editorial in the Science Teachers Association of New York State’s (STANYS) The Science Teachers Bulletin (Spring 2009 issue), Murad writes that with service learning incorporated into her teaching, “my students seem to study and/or retain the scientific information better because it has a larger context than simply a fact in a textbook. Additionally, they also begin to understand the budgetary, political, and social constraints that muddy the waters of even the best scientific ideas (concepts that I do not have time to teach in a science class but are important civic lessons nonetheless).”
Developing science projects featuring service learning requires teachers and students to tap into their creativity. David Lawrence, eighth-grade math and science teacher at Wood Hill Middle School in Andover, Massachusetts, elaborates on how he and his teammates—language arts/social studies teacher Karen Parker and special education teacher Christine Hill—accomplished this. “In the first week or two of school, we had the kids explore issues that they felt strongly about. We didn’t restrict the focus to anything specific, but rather gave them some ‘food for thought’ using provocative photos in an informal gallery as a starting point.” Parker “then worked the resulting ideas into her social studies curriculum (studying government and citizenship), culminating in each student working on a year-long service project that addressed some aspect of their chosen issue.” Science-related issues were “generally, either medical (ALS [amyotrophic lateral sclerosis] and breast cancer were two prominent topics) or environmental (global warming had a fairly large contingent).”
While he agrees “it was exciting to see the students develop and implement their projects,” Lawrence admits some projects focused too strongly on fundraising, a problem he and his team hope to remedy this year. “Simply raising money doesn’t connect the kids as closely with the service and therefore does not provide as powerful (or educational) [of an] experience for them.”
Problem-Based Service Learning
One solution to the “too much fundraising” issue is Problem-Based Service Learning (PBSL). “PBSL engages students working in teams to solve real community-based problems. Through PBSL, students are presented with problems posed by community partners and asked to seek authentic and viable solutions,” writes Rick Gordon in “Problem-Based Service Learning: Connecting Academics to the Community Through Real Service” (STANYS’ The Science Teachers Bulletin, Spring 2009).
PBSL helps teachers with two main challenges of service learning: managing logistical details and ensuring course learning objectives are met, writes Gordon, author of the book PBSL Fieldguide: Making a Difference in Higher Education. “By partnering with a client who brings the class a problem to solve, the demands on teachers and community partners are lessened. The problem statement itself is framed to focus on the community partner’s needs and the course learning outcomes.”
James Smith, a chemistry teacher at Matawan Regional High School in Aberdeen, New Jersey, plans to put PBSL in action. He has learned the soil abutting nearby Raritan Bay “is considered heavily contaminated with lead.” Working with former colleagues in the U.S. Navy, he and his students plan to examine the water in the bay to determine lead levels and the presence of other dangerous substances. The Army Corps of Engineers is willing to provide “some use of their equipment” to conduct the water testing, he adds.
He wants his students to assess the severity of the contamination, “research the sites and gain the history of the place, [and] check the water for lead content at different areas of the bay to see if there is variation.” In the process, students will learn “several scientific concepts, not the least of which [are] solubility and saturation, which are the basic concepts they would be learning in the classroom.” He then plans to “challenge the students to come up with ways to clean up an area of the bay.”
While Smith’s PBSL project is in the planning stage, Paul Rutherford, engineering instructor at Summit Technology Academy in Lee’s Summit, Missouri, has had years of experience with the approach. For example, after he taught students about fluid mechanics, two of his student teams worked with engineers from the city’s Public Works Department to develop designs for the city’s new recycling center. “The ‘winning’ design was built and is now in operation,” he says, adding it saved the city about $50,000.
One of his challenges with PBSL has involved “generating viable and replicable assessment and evaluation tools, as none really exist to cover such projects for high school students.” Consequently, he must continually update his assessment methods. He describes one method as “a very rigorous and highly detailed account of everything that the student does, thinks, communicates, and computes throughout the field experience semester.” He also assesses students’ presentations to professionals, for which he has created “project-specific rubrics…unique to the particular project the student and/or team is working on.”
Rutherford says teachers “need to understand that this level of collaboration requires many hours beyond one’s normal, everyday classroom assignments and activities.” For example, he spends time “maintaining regular and open lines of communication with city leaders and the engineering staff in both the public and private sector,” seeking their advice regarding assessment and evaluation issues. But he says all his efforts pay off: “I can ‘wander’ around city hall and be addressed as ‘Doc’ and visit with any number of staffers and local politicians…Likewise, my students’ parents have seen the value of such real-world experiences, and…when my students arrive on [their college] campus, they’re so far ahead of the curve, it’s scary!”
As part of her PBSL project, Regina Brinker of Christensen Middle School in Livermore, California, invited a local ranger and a conservationist from a local nature preserve to visit her class, then took students on a field trip to the preserve. She says these experiences inspired her students to become “passionate” about the preserve. They coordinated two creek cleanups in the area with the help of local organizations and created PowerPoint presentations and podcasts about it.
When her students were asked to find out how “to have the Livermore tar plant (unique to this area) listed as an endangered plant,” Brinker says they immediately contacted state resource managers. “Their efforts resulted in a biologist starting the process to have this plant listed as endangered. A plant survey will be conducted in August, when the plant is in bloom, and the petition for listing will proceed.” She adds, “Their work could have a lasting effect, especially if the plant earns endangered status.” She is adamant about her role in the project: “I helped set the stage, but they ran with the ideas.”
To Learn More
The NSTA Learning Center can connect you with more resources, including “Community Service Learning—Making Education Interesting and Relevant,” Steve Metz’s editorial from the April/May 2007 issue of The Science Teacher. Search using the keywords “service learning.”
Virginia Malone, a retired senior science project director from Hondo, Texas, offers several resources for teachers to use with service learning/PBSL projects on the website www.wetheteachers.com, which is free but requires registration. Her materials include instructions for setting up a decision-making matrix, a tool for making decisions based on logical criteria; a simple activity that teaches students how to ask questions; and the seven elements of success, which she says, “apply to just about anything, including teaching.”