Curriculum Essentials

INVS 1000: Responding to Social and Environmental Problems Through Service Learning

By integrating theory with required community service, students explore how problems are shaped by cultural values and how alternative value paradigms affect the definition of problems.  Students examine different approaches to solving problems and begin to envision new possibilities.  Approved for Arts and Sciences core curriculum: Ideals and Values.

Methods: Services Learning and Participatory Education

• Relate to daily life
• Do experiential activities
• Do collective activities
• Encourage critical thinking
• Provide student choice within structured options
• Be interactive
• Have guests and field trips
• Share personal stories
• Generate small group discussion
• Practice student facilitation
• Be creative

Essential Knowledge:

• Understand participatory education model
• Explore dominant values and how they shape social and environmental problems
• Explore alternative values and how they affect the definition of social and environmental problems
• Overview of some social and environmental problems such as environmental degredation, educational challenges and 1-2 problems chosen by students
• Examine social and environmental possibilities
• Explore actions that can make a difference and address issues in daily life

Essential Skills:

• Entering communities responsibly (includes doing one's homework, informational interviewing and committing)
• Exiting communities responsibly (includes appreciation, celebration, and evaluation)
• Critical analysis
• Reflection
• Public speaking and presenting

Essential Experience:

• Community service with a community-based organization addressing issues relevant to the environmental degradation, educational challenges, and 1-2 issues chosen by students
• Sense of community in class
• Empowered action for social or environmental change