CCISD teaches service
By GARRETT NEESE, DMG WriterArticle Photos
HOUGHTON - From meeting with seniors to making interpretive signs for the Paavola Wetlands Preserve, service learning projects are an increasingly integral part of area education.
Some of the teachers behind those projects met at the Copper Country Intermediate School District's Service Learning Dinner Monday night at Michigan Technological University to share their projects with each other and celebrate their work.
Service learning is a teaching and learning approach designed to connect service to the community with academic learning. Between 75 to 100 of the 500 teachers in the ISD do some level of service learning with their classes, said Carla Strome, service learning coordinator at the CCISD.
"The students are very engaged, and you can tell they're passionate about what they're doing," she said.
Previous dinners were smaller, Strome said; this year, they expanded it to include a keynote speaker - Susan Amato-Henderson, an associate professor of psychology at Tech.
Amato-Henderson got involved with service learning 12 years ago while working at Boise State University in Boise, Idaho.
At the time, she said, few people considered it useful. But it's been receiving more and more mainstream acceptance since, even getting a high-profile fan in President Barack Obama.
"It's very nice to sit back and see its value is finally being recognized," she said.
She's seen the value first-hand. One of her students had signed up to work at a senior fair; a few days beforehand, he confessed to her his grandmother's death had left him with a fear of old people.
Amato-Henderson switched things around so he didn't have any direct responsibilities. But he overcome his fear.
"At the end of the senior fair, he was dancing with an elderly lady," she said.
From her own experience, when Strome asks her kids what they did in school that day, it's the service learning projects that provoke the longest and most enthused answers.
"They see how they can make a difference in the world," she said. "That's so powerful for an 11-, 12-, 13-year-old student or a 6-, 7-, 8-year-old to see they can make a difference."
At C-L-K Elementary School, teacher Amy Schneiderhan spearheaded an effort through the Lake Superior Stewardship Initiative to build a garden, which now includes carrots, chives, peppers, squash, tomatoes and other plants.
Students have learned skills such as composting and planting efficiency.
They've been excited about the project, said third-grade teacher Stacy Lancour.
"A little girl had to drag her mom past the compost to explain it to her and show it to her," she said.
The CCISD received their first grant from the Michigan Service Commission five-and-a-half years ago. They're in their last year of funding now, Strome said.
"We're certainly looking for ways to continue the efforts that we started," she said.
Garrett Neese can be reached at gneese@mininggazette.com.
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ammcmaho
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06-16-09 12:14 PM
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Exciting to see composting being taught - now how about some gray water usage. That'd be a nice article to read about in the features section. Growing our own food without enabling mansanto
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