Grades 5/6: Service Council Pilots New Model

Since the beginning of the school year, a group of motivated students have met during the 5/6 club period as well as every A Day during lunch to pursue their interest in service learning. The 5/6 Service Council, run by Christi James and Kimm Lucas, provides opportunities for students who are interested in learning more about the world around them and what they can do to be proactive citizens beyond the service-learning opportunities offered in their respective grades.

 

All throughout the 2017-18 school year, Señora James and Mrs. Lucas piloted a new service-learning model for the council which they developed last summer.

"With the goal of both innovating the learning and empowering student leaders at Graland, the new model is based on the interests and motivations of the students," explains Mrs. Lucas. "The action plans have been developed and and executed by the students with background support from the teachers." In contrast, the previous model for service council was teacher-led and focused on planning fundraising activities, researching local causes, choosing a cause that agreed with the majority of students, and then donating the money raised to a certain cause.

 

Students began by the year by studying the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), a set of goals adopted by countries around the world in 2015 that serve as a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity. Within each goal are specific targets to be achieved over the next 15 years. From their research into the SDGs, students gained knowledge about topics such as climate change, economic inequality, innovation, sustainable consumption, peace and justice, among other priorities.

 

Next, students were encouraged to begin thinking about how they could use one of the goals to make a difference on a personal or local level. To help guide the students, club meetings offered several opportunities for hands-on projects. For example, council members made jump ropes out of plastic grocery store bags and Play Doh^TM that were donated to the Colorado School for the Blind.  

 

Prior to Spring Break, two groups of service council members showed videos and led discussions within their grade levels on the topics which they decided to take a deeper dive into. Avery Anderson, Claire Boyle, Noa Sachs, Jillian Kboudi, Sama Abdulameer and Ellie Grimm found a common interest in girls and education accessibility. As one of them recently said, “To promote awareness and raise money for girls to get a quality education, we sold snacks at the 5/6 social and showed some of the Girl Rising movie, a documentary about girls who have fought for their education.”

 

Tori Fowler and Amelia Birner were interested in climate change. In summarizing their work over the past school year, both girls recently reported that they have have talked to scientists, found videos, and researched about climate change and how it affects the world. Next, they asked many questions and brainstormed. They made a list of things people can do to help mitigate climate change. Lastly, they presented a series of short videos to inform their peers about the need to stop climate change.

 

Connecting to the UN Sustainable Development Goals makes the work of this project authentic and meaningful. This new model promotes Graland’s mission to encourage critical thinking, creativity and problem solving. The students participating in this program have engaged in an innovative approach to service learning and make a positive impact on others as they wrestle with real world problems and solutions.