June 2020 Newsletter

Program Highlights

New At-Home Service-Learning Project Guide!

Check out the Service in Schools online resource page , featuring remote resources for carrying out service-learning at home. Access Service in Schools’ new project guide on reducing water and energy waste in your home. Learn about how letting our faucets run and leaving the lights on when no one is in the room affects the environment. Also check out other project guides about how to reduce food waste and help fight hunger in your community.   Enjoying our project guides? Reply to this email and let us know what topic you’d like to see us cover next.

Service in Schools: Helping Out the Community from Home Webinar!

On June 4, Service in Schools hosted a webinar, Helping Out the Community from Home, featuring the five stages of service-learning and how to incorporate them into virtual classrooms. Through the exploration of an at-home project guide on helping with hunger and food insecurity, the Service in Schools team shared strategies and resources to guide students in identifying, understanding, and taking action on a community need in a remote learning setting. Over 650 educators participated in the webinar sessions, and the Service in Schools team looks forward to hearing about how they implement service-learning into their curriculum!

We Want to Hear From You!

We want to feature your school’s service-learning projects on social media or in our newsletter, especially if they relate to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Let us know how you are taking service-learning remote and how you and your students are supporting each other and their community. This can include school-wide, class-based, and individual projects. Send us an email at serviceinschools@schools.nyc.gov for a chance to be featured.

School Spotlight

P.S. 60 The Alice Austen School - Staten Island

The Kids Action Team at P.S. 60 started as a group called Art for Animals and had plans to research different animals and create artwork featuring animals to auction off, with the funds going to support wildlife protection. However, their plans shifted when remote learning began. They searched for ways to alter and continue their work and were inspired by the Google Doodle for Earth Day, which was an animation that taught users about bees. They held weekly meetings online and set up a special Google Classroom for their project, which shifted toward raising awareness about the crisis facing honeybees. Students interviewed a beekeeper over a video call, researched how to help bees, created bee-centric artwork, and planted "bee gardens," with seeds to grow flowers that bees pollinate. The students have also been using the iNaturalist app on their smartphones to monitor bee populations in their neighborhoods for scientists.   The Kids Action Team created an educational video as a compilation of their work and shared it with grades 3-5 in their school. All of the artwork, animation, and information in the video was created by the students. They also shared a letter for fellow students to download, print, and give to landscapers to stop the use of pesticides in the community. P.S. 60’s Kids Action Team members have shown their creativity and flexibility while finding a way to help their community!

At-Home Service Project Ideas

National Youth Leadership Council The National Youth Leadership Council is offering a virtual summit on education equity from July 20-22, 2020 for students 13 and up. This student-led event will bring together youth to develop their skills for community action through a series of trainings that explore personal identity rooted in social and emotional learning. The three-day event will include sessions that explore personal leadership styles and cultural backgrounds, youth/adult partnerships, and action-planning for assessments leading to addressing community needs. Register now after creating a free login and learn more about this opportunity.

NYC Service Youth are experiencing a time in our city’s history like never before. All young people are invited to exercise their civic duties while at home through the Civic Impact at Home section of Generation NYC’s website, powered by NYC Service. Free activities include voter registration, service projects, youth voice outlet, surveys for prizes, and more. Every opportunity expands civic leadership for young people to engage and will help inform city leadership on youth resources and programing.

Resources for Remote Service-Learning Instruction

BrianPOP BrainPOP is committed to combating racism by creating content that examines the long and painful history of race in America. By doing so, they hope to help children understand the root causes of racism that we continue to encounter today, and empower them to take action to dismantle it. BrainPOP created a list of free K-8 resources to help educators, parents, and caregivers engage in these difficult but essential conversations. Explore these essential resources today!

Giraffe Heroes Project The Giraffe Heroes Project   moves people to stick their necks out for the common good and gives them tools to succeed. The Project finds brave women, men, and children from all backgrounds and places who act with courage and compassion to solve significant public problems, and then gets the stories of these heroes told. Finding the heroes in our midst today is more important than ever. If you’re a teacher doing remote lessons with your students or a parent figuring out how to be with your children 24/7, the Pandemic Heroes and Resources page will help your kids find the real, inspiring heroes they need to see in these tough times to get inspired and take action too. Also, the Giraffe K-12 service learning and civic engagement program helps children build lives as courageous and compassionate citizens. Contact the Giraffe Heroes Project at office@giraffe.org and follow Giraffe Heroes on Facebook .

Contact the Service in Schools Team

Does your school have a great service project to share? If so, the Service in Schools team wants to know! Invite the Service in Schools team to visit your service project. We want to see your students and school community in action. Email the Service in Schools team at ServiceinSchools@schools.nyc.gov with two weeks’ notice, and we’ll schedule a visit to your school to learn about your project and see the impact you’re making on the community.

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Follow @ServicenSchools on Twitter and @ServiceinSchools on Instagram to receive program updates, upcoming service opportunities, resources, and more. We encourage students who use social media and are interested in service opportunities to follow us.

Mission: Service in Schools strives to expand the number of NYC students engaged in transformative community service and service-learning experiences that enable them to use their voice, skills, and critical thinking to strengthen communities.