Presents 10 ideas for service learning projects designed for elementary schools. Includes having students do local history projects complete with interviews and artifacts, learn about community volunteering, interact with the elderly, care for the environment, recycle materials, and hold canned food drives. (MJP)

Outlines approaches for student evaluation in service learning projects. Maintains that most service learning project participants' goals fall into three broad areas: civic development, academic achievement, and personal or social development. Assessment in these areas can be accomplished through tabulation of service hours, student journals, and…

Profiles Active Citizenship Today (ACT), a social studies service learning program for middle and high school students. In ACT, students explore their community, identify problems, examine public policy, explore their options, and take action. Includes unit excerpts from the ACT teacher's handbook. (MJP)

Briefly describes a service-learning grant program and provides examples of elementary, middle, and high school projects awarded grants in 1996. Projects included efforts to educate the community about river pollution, multicultural murals, and a school activities news show. Includes application form and general guidelines and suggestions. (MJP)

Describes a middle school curriculum that integrates service learning and civic responsibility skills into the core academic program. The "CityYouth" curriculum consists of 32 multidisciplinary lessons divided into four units of eight lessons each. Examines how schools have incorporated the units into community activities. (MJP)

Details a series of service learning projects conducted by a California middle school social studies class. Creative, inexpensive, and substantive, the projects included writing to Manuel Noreiga in prison, creating a feed-the-homeless garden, and translating city documents into other languages. (MJP)

Argues that the preservation of areas like the Shoreline Park (California) wetlands depends on educating students about the value of natural resources. Describes the creation of a Web page on the wetlands for third-grade students by seventh-grade art and ecology students. Outlines the technical process of developing a Web page. (DSK)

Recommends a broad application of experiential learning and community service projects as a means of reinvigorating social studies and making them relevant. Describes a number of projects from service learning to local history that illustrate this approach. Discusses this approach in terms of benefits, real life application, and assessment. (MJP)