Bookmark or Email this page:
K-12 Fact Sheets
 | AmeriCorps, Service-Learning, and Community: Working to Address Community Needs and Strengths | |
 This fact sheet introduces community assessment to AmeriCorps members working in educational settings and looking to enhance their experience of learning through service, and for anyone interested in finding a way to increase civic engagement, academic, personal, and social outcomes of youth and students. | ||
| AmeriCorps and Service-Learning 101 | |
| This fact sheet highlights some of the emerging knowledge in this field based on theory, process evaluations, and field wisdom—knowing that more rigorous research is needed. | ||
| Building Effective Partnerships in Service-Learning | |
| Effective partnerships between agencies, schools, colleges or universities, businesses, government, and residents for the benefit of the community are a vital part of youth service in America. This fact sheet provides resources that will get you thinking about how to develop and sustain these partnerships. | ||
| Character Education and Service-Learning | |
| Learn more about the integral relationship of character education and service-learning. | ||
| Charter Schools (K-12) | |
| Charter schools are public schools created as an alternative to traditional public schools. The resources on this page will provide you with more facts regarding the creation, administration, and success of charter schools across the nation as well as state specific information. | ||
| Citizenship and Service-Learning in K-12 Schools | |
| The research on service-learning and citizenship in K-12 schools is growing rapidly as the issue of citizenship takes center stage on the national level. This fact sheet provides a very brief discussion of several of the emergent issues discovered in the research and provides extended abstracts of a few key studies. | ||
| Civics in K-12 Education | |
| This Fact sheet discusses the relationship between service-learning and civic education in K-12 schools. | ||
| Curriculum Development for K-12 Service-Learning | |
| High-quality service-learning projects must be organized to maximize the meaningfulness of both service and learning. This fact sheet provides a framework for effective service-learning curriculum development. | ||
| Democratic Classrooms | |
| Find information and resources on democratic classrooms, those in which the curriculum actively engages students in collaborative inquiry decision making is shared between students and staff and students choose their daily activities. | ||
| Engaging Families in Service: Broadening Service-Learning's Reach, Impact, and Support | |
| This resource gives an overview of the challenges and benefits of including the entire family when doing service-learning. | ||
| Funding for K-12 Service-Learning Programs | |
| This page may be helpful to those designing a funding strategy and finding funding sources for K-12 service-learning programs. | ||
| Homeland Security and K-12 Service-Learning | |
| This fact sheet addresses K-12 service-learning activities that are focused on homeland security. Background information is presented first, followed by a sample of project descriptions intended to provide a sense of the nature and extent of homeland security-related programs that are currently in place. The next section presents brief descriptions of curricula and related resources and organizations that support homeland security activities. The fact sheet concludes with an annotated bibliography of homeland security-related resources. | ||
| Impacts of Service-Learning on Participating K-12 Students | |
| Service-learning approaches used in K-12 schools have been found in many studies to have positive impacts on students' academic achievement, civic engagement, career aspirations, and social/personal development. This fact sheet provides an update and summary of research on K-12 service-learning impacts published since 1999. | ||
| Improving Outcomes for K-12 Service-Learning Participants | |
| Several new studies have recently been completed that illuminate the characteristics of service-learning practice most closely associated with student outcomes. These studies, conducted with different populations and examining multiple kinds of service-learning programs and approaches, have relatively consistent findings. The studies are summarized on this fact sheet, and a link to the full study is provided. | ||
| Parent & Family Involvement in K-12 Service-Learning | |
| Learn how service-learning programs can offer parents and families the opportunity to participate in innovative learning experiences, and to become engaged in their children’s schools in unique ways. | ||
| Policy: K-12 Service-Learning | |
| The development of state policies legitimizes the practice of service-learning. It also provides mechanisms for stable funding and development of guidelines for service-learning programs at the local school levels. This fact sheet will help you understand K-12 service-learning policy. | ||
| Prevention and K-12 Service-Learning | |
| Service-learning can be an effective strategy for prevention of at-risk behaviors such as substance abuse, violence, suicide, and dropping out. This fact sheet briefly discusses K-12 service-learning and prevention and provides a list of useful resources. | ||
| Public Health & Service-Learning | |
| This resource gives an overview of service-learning and provides a list of resources and research on service-learning and public health. | ||
| Recognition in Service-Learning | |
| Find new ideas for recognizing your service-learning participants, learn how to select appropriate forms of recognition, and get the resources you need to create a successful recognition program. | ||
| Reflection: K-12 Service-Learning | |
| Reflection in service-learning provides students and teachers with a way to look back at their experiences, evaluate them, and apply what is learned to future experiences. This fact sheet helps students build skills necessary for analyzing and solving problems and developing creative solutions. | ||
| Research in Support of Youth Voice and Service-Learning | |
| Youth voice refers to the process of involving young people in decisions that affect their own lives and those of their peers. Recently, there has been a growing trend toward increasing youth voice in service-learning, schools, and community organizations (Zeldin, et al. 2003; Coalition of Community Foundations for Youth, 2002). | ||
| Resilience | |
| The concept of resilience is based on the theory that particular traits or “protective factors” such as caring relationships and high expectations help strengthen people’s ability to persist during adversity. This fact sheet discusses how service-learning programs that build in protective factors can also help build students’ resiliency. | ||
| Resources for AmeriCorps Members | |
| This fact sheet includes resources for those who are interested in finding a way to increase civic engagement, academic, personal, and social outcomes of youth and students. | ||
| Risk Management and Liability | |
| The terms risk management and liability strike terror into the hearts of service-learning program managers. However, this does not need to be the case. This fact sheet provides tips for staying on top of liability issues and limiting risk. | ||
| Service-Learning and Dropout Prevention | |
| This fact sheet highlights how service-learning is being and can be used to school dropouts. | ||
| Service-Learning and Student Engagement | |
| This fact sheet briefly discusses several aspects of service-learning that research has identified as likely to increase student engagement. | ||
| Service-Learning with Disadvantaged Youth | |
| On average, it’s harder to grow up well when you live in poverty. Indeed, low socioeconomic status (SES) is negatively linked to a wide range of indicators of child and adolescent well-being (Beauvais & Jensen 2003; Evans 2004; Hawkins et. al., 2000). At the same time, growing up poor does not seal one’s destiny. | ||
| Standards and Indicators for Effective Service-Learning Practice | |
| In April 2008, the National Youth Leadership Council released the K-12 Service-Learning Standards for Quality Practice. These standards grew out of a need to update conventional wisdom about quality practice as reflected in the Essential Elements of Service-Learning. | ||
| STEM (Science Technology Engineering Math) Education & Service-Learning | |
| STEM is an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics and usually refers to education in one or more of these disciplines. This fact sheet offers information on how service-learning can address some of the concerns over the decline in STEM education in the United States. | ||
| Sustaining Service-Learning in K-12 Schools | |
| How can service-learning be sustained in an educational environment that stresses accountability and evidence-based practice? This fact sheet provides a summary of some research on service-learning sustainability. | ||
| Teacher Education & Service-Learning | |
| This fact sheet discusses the benefits of service-learning in teacher education and provides a list of resources for further information on this topic. | ||
| Why Districts, Schools, and Classrooms Should Practice Service-Learning | |
| Many educators consider service-learning a "value-added" approach because it helps participants from schools and communities and has multiple benefits for each. This fact sheet highlights some key reasons why districts, schools and classrooms should practice service-learning. | ||
| Youth Development and K-12 Service-Learning | |
| This brief looks at the role of school-based service-learning in positive youth development. | ||
| Youth Voice in Service-Learning | |
| Learn more about encouraging and increasing the input of young people in developing and implementing policies, plans and projects to guide service-learning efforts. | ||
