The green concept has tremendous value in schools, especially when it reflects the central purpose and mission of schools: educating young people to participate and civically engage in society. School communities that keep greening the school on the periphery of their awareness will reap advantages, but those that align this idea with the…

Civic engagement has been on the decline for 50 years, and even with the recent increase in voting in the primary presidential elections, youth participation in society remains low. Those students who do not complete high school have virtually no involvement in civic, political and community affairs. Such realities suggest a marked failure--within…

Identifying a community problem or need and helping to solve it via student-led initiatives is at the heart of service learning. Elson Nash, associate director for program management at Learn and Serve America, a grant program of the Corporation for National and Community Service and USA Freedom Corps, calls service learning "the glue that…

Many educators consider the final year of high school to be a "vast wasteland," an epidemic of disengagement. Although high schools across the country have struggled with senioritis, responses to the problem have largely fallen into vertical acceleration, in which schools typically offer an array of AP courses or dual enrollment…

When college students are asked why they attend college, most say they want to obtain a diploma so they can get a good job, make good money, and get ahead in the world. A growing body of evidence indicates that students are hoping to get more than just education out of their college experience. They are searching for life skills and a way to help…