Chris Perkins  Windward High School Ferndale, WA

Teacher, MAT, NBCT; Endorsed: Social Studies, HQT: Visual Arts

Service Learning, Place-based Education

Healthy Neighborhoods, Healthy Kids. From the website: The Healthy Neighborhoods/ Healthy Kids (HN/HK) Project is a service-learning/civic engagement and project-based learning framework for students designed by Shelburne Farms’ Sustainable Schools Project in collaboration with Smart Growth Vermont.

Free downloads at:

Explicitly Teach Skills

  • Interviewing strangers, videos:
  • David Garrido, BBC Sports
  • Dana & David, USC
  • Exploring Values
  • Personal Values quiz to an external site.)
  • Video
  • Elevator speech/sales pitch
  • Asking for help from friends and strangers
  • Writing formal letters and emails

Specific projects for increasing civic engagement in the classroom:

  • Investigate how a person experiencing poverty, or how an elderly person interacts with local, state, and federal government to get basic services.
  • Interview local farmers, small business owners, foresters, fishermen, real estate developers, etc., to find out what regulations they find beneficial and which they find onerous to their livelihoods. Research those regulations and write a letter to your local representatives about your experience.
  • Explore sovereignty by comparing the relationship between your local tribe, the state government, and the national government.
  • Research local, state, and federal funding for your school district. Interview your school district superintendent, financial officer, school board members, to learn how funding is used and what kinds of difficult decisions are made on behalf of students.
  • Conduct a waste audit at your school. Research where that waste goes; what percentage is recycled or sent to landfills. Where is your local recycling and garbage taken? Interview your local waste management authority.
  • Conduct a compostable food audit. Investigate whether or not your school can legally compost its own waste? Investigate what happens to local food/yard waste from curbside pickup (if you even have it). How can food/yard waste be used to create natural fertilizers or energy?
  • Conduct an energy audit in your school building. Similar project to those above with interviews.

Resources:

AMP Theory of Motivation: Pink, Daniel H.Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. New York, NY: Riverhead Books, 2009.

  • Great video on YouTube:

Growth Mindset: Dweck, Carol S.Mindset: The New Psychology Of Success. New York : Ballantine Books, 2008.

YouTube videos:

  • Carol Dweck:
  • Sprouts Youtube Channel:
  • TED Talk: Eduardo Briceno:

Values lesson materials

Student Quiz

Videos

For speech excerpts or other information please email at:

Email: Cell Phone #: 360-594-2246

School Mailing Address: PO Box 698, Ferndale WA, 98248