Ideas for Enriching Foreign Language Classes
Cross-age Teaching:
As more and more schools are exploring ways to expose elementary students to foreign language, high school upper level language students could provide instruction for elementary students and teachers.
International Telecommunications Projects:
Many schools are participating in international projects utilizing the computer. Students well versed in languages can help translate materials so students from different countries can communication with each other.
The MISSION of iEARN-USA is to enable young people worldwide, working in collaboration and dialogue, to make a meaningful contribution to the health and welfare of the planet and its people.
Since 1988, iEARN-USA has pioneered the use of the Internet and other innovative technologies to engage youth worldwide in collaborative project-based learning to address curriculum subjects and take action on global issues.
Brochure Translation:
Schools and community organizations that serve multilingual clients often need help translating their materials into different languages.
LEP and ESL Students:
Students with limited English proficiency (LEP) or who speak English as a second language (ESL) often find much satisfaction being able to share their native language abilities with the community.
Language Camps:
Students could refine their new language skills by teaching others.
Amnesty International:
Students can write letters to governments in various countries on behalf of political prisoners. http://www.amnesty.org
Trading Lessons:
Providing English lessons in exchange for “other language” lessons.
Community Partnerships:
Partnering with community agencies that serve refugees or others to provide services, assistance or decorations/ resource materials.
Ideas for Enriching Health classes
Service as a Healthy Activity
Knowing that service promotes a sense of well being, many schools are including service in their overall health curriculum. By encouraging students to have a volunteer experience, health teachers hope to provide the skills and experiences students need to be able to make service a lifetime habit.
Students Applying Their Skills
- Take Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) training and join the local volunteer ambulance crew.
- Help the Red Cross collect blood.
- Conduct blood pressure screenings.
- Youth as Health Educators: HIV/AIDS Peer education is a perfect venue for service-learning projects that can be directed toward student-to-student efforts as well as student to community projects. Many groups also participate in mall-based health and wellness projects by setting up and staffing booths that provide information about HIV/AIDS. Some participate in AIDS Walks to raise money for local AIDS task forces, provide support to people who are living with AIDS by running errands for them, and reading to them.
- Teach first aid to younger students and to the public.
- Teach basic home emergency skills to young children who are home alone.
Ideas for Enriching Horticulture Classes
- Create a set of “Tree Cookies”. Plan a lesson about the “Tree Cookies” to present to peers or a younger group of students.
Making Tree Cookies
- Grow plants from seed to take to a hospital or care center.
- Volunteer to maintain the yard of an elderly or disabled community member.
- Grow a vegetable garden and donate the produce to a local food bank or soup kitchen, then volunteer to help prepare a meal using your vegetables.
- School Beautification: Students plant trees, bulbs, and flowers on the school campus. They build benches and paint them. Students can also conduct a litter pick-up on the the campus every week. This encourages students to take pride in their school.
Ideas for enriching Marketing and Business classes:
Project Ideas:
Students from Central Valley High School implemented a variety of service activities within their School-to-Work efforts. For example, they have designed and built a central receiving station for Goodwill Industries.
REAL: (Rural Entrepreneurship through Action Learning) This project enables high school students in rural communities to develop enterprises which they can “take with them” as graduates. A graduate started a business in a high school that currently employees and contributes to the economic well being of the rural community.
Credit Union: Students at Grand Coulee High School run a credit union that serves the community as well as youth.
Riverside School-Based Enterprises: The following small business incubators have successfully operated at Riverside High School in Chattaroy, Washington:
- Printshop
- Thrift and Gift Shop
- Computer technology
- Youth Employment Agency
Campaign to “Stop Hunger in North Carolina”: Students reserach the occurence of hunger within their state. They prepare presentations and make posters to make others aware of the problem. Students volunteer at the local Food Bank at least one evening each month. Students collect food for a food drive, or plant a row in the school garden just for the Food Bank.
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