The current study examined Connect Science, a service-learning program which incorporates social and emotional learning lessons and science lessons developed around Next Generation Science Standards. Guided by Self-Determination Theory, focus groups with 8 Connect Science classrooms and 8 control classrooms investigated fourth graders' experience…

Energy concepts are taught in many schools, but children rarely have an opportunity to grapple with energy problems and work on their own solutions. This study explores the impacts of Connect Science, a service-learning (SL) program developed to enhance elementary students' energy literacy in the United States. Program impacts were explored within…

Regional Educational Laboratory Southwest partnered with the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE) to examine Arkansas's middle and high school indicators of postsecondary readiness and success, building on an earlier study of these indicators (Hester et al., 2021). Academic indicators include attaining proficiency on state achievement tests,…

A K-12 school district located in southern California was faced with overcrowding at 1of its middle schools for the 2011-2012 school year. This project study was designed to explore if an elementary or middle school campus was best in supporting students' academics while they were in transition to 6th grade middle school. Maslow's hierarchy of…

This study investigates the extent to which service-learners' mindfulness is affected by engagement in reflection (e.g., dialogue) and contemplation activities (e.g., labyrinth tracing). The results are compared within and between treatment groups, while covarying for participants' initial levels of mindfulness. While both dialogue and…

Over the past few decades, service-learning has surged in popularity. Although most programs are implemented in high school and college classrooms, service-learning has the potential for great impact in middle school. The present article evaluates a pilot service-learning program for fifth- and seventh-grade (N = 86) children in a large, urban,…

Freshman honors students in a service-learning course tutored low-income English Language Learning kindergartners, first-, and second-graders in reading. We conducted two separate data collections, one assessing college students' attitudes and motives (Study 1) and one exploring the benefits for elementary school children (Study 2). We measured…

A pretest and posttest survey was used to measure differences in personal and interpersonal development for 622 students enrolled in educational psychology and criminal justice courses from the beginning to the end of the semester. Results indicate that service-learners have higher ratings of their social justice attitudes and problem-solving…

Service learning experiences hold the potential to significantly influence participants' view of cultures other than their own. This qualitative study examines how service learning affects preservice teachers' attitudes about working with students from diverse backgrounds. Two groups of preservice teachers enrolled in a reading methods course…

Educators continually seek effective strategies to address the educational needs of students. Two popular strategies are service-learning and after-school programs. The purpose of this study was to begin to explore the value of embedding service-learning into after-school programs. This study utilized a historical database and compared two groups…

The "ISSS Annual Conference Proceedings" is a peer-reviewed professional publication published once a year following the annual conference. (Individual papers contain references.) [For the 2009 proceedings, see ED504973.]