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20 Citizen Science Projects for Students of All Ages

4/20/2021

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Spring is the perfect time of year to get students outside actively participating in science. Citizen science is a great way to build 21st-century skills and contribute to larger effort to understand science and our natural world. Check out my top 20 citizen science programs for students!
Spring is the perfect time of year for citizen science! It's warming up outside, students are getting antsy and exhausted, testing is underway, breaks are badly needed. On top of that, things start to get active in the world of wildlife, especially in temperate regions like Minnesota. Animals emerge from hibernation, migrating species begin their long journeys to their summer sanctuaries, and it's breeding season for many organisms. ​

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10 Community Action Project Ideas to Wrap Up the School Year

3/23/2021

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Community action projects are a combination of project-based learning and service-learning and are entirely student-directed. Students develop and execute action plans for community issues or problems that have personal meaning to them. The end of the school year is a great time to launch these projects in your classroom or home learning environment. Check out these options!
Spring is here, the weather is warming, and students are getting antsy. The school year is wrapping up. Teachers want to end the year with a bang, but are also exhausted and don't know how much more they have left in them to give! It's testing season, graduation season, grade report season. Ah! Spring is bonkers in the world of education. 

So What better way to cruise through the rest of the year and go out with a bang than with community action projects (CAPs)?

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How to Facilitate Self-Directed Project-Based Service-Learning

3/16/2021

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Community action projects are a great mix of project-based learning and service-learning, and the best part is that they are self-directed. Community action projects offer students the opportunity to get involved with community issues and take action on those issues.
When I was teaching high schoolers, I included community action projects in every facet of my teaching. A community action project is a form of project-based learning where students identify issues in the community, research the issues, brainstorm solutions, develop an action plan, and take action. These experiences are the coolest form of self-directed service-learning.

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Four Ways Students Can Make an Impact Through Project-Based Service- Learning

3/15/2021

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Are you in need of high school service-learning ideas? If so, self-directed is the way to go. This blog helps educators implement self-directed service-learning through a project-based learning approach, and with these tips, it is easy to facilitate. Start right now!
My entire teaching career was at one school, and the philosophy is strongly rooted in "community" as the foundation for learning. In nine years teaching there I developed a deep appreciation for student-involvement in the community. 

Students have the capacity to make massive waves of change because they are young, technologically savvy, and many injustices happening in the world today are happening to them, impacting them directly.

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Top Young Adult Books for Women's Studies

2/28/2021

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There are so many amazing young adult books that teach teens about women in history, issues that women face now and historically, powerful female figures and more. The books included on this list are those that are favorites of mine. Check out our school's women's studies book club young adult book choices.

Top Young Adult Books for Women's Studies

About ten years ago I picked up a book called "Half the Sky". Within the first chapter I read this quote: "More than 100 million women are missing..." at any given time. This is because of trafficking, gendercide, domestic violence, etc. This quote, and this book, really struck me. I mentioned it, and the PBS documentary that goes along with it, to a few of my high school students. They were interested, largely because many of the issues resonated with them personally. These students led project-based learning experiences on some of the issues and shared their final products with the school community. ​

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How to Use the Community as a Resource in Project-Based Learning

2/15/2021

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The community is an awesome resource for teachers and learners, whether it be in the classroom or beyond the walls of the classroom. Community is especially prevalent in project-based learning. Check out this blog post on how to use the community as a resource in project-based learning.
The last several blog posts have been around self-directed project-based learning and how to plan such an experience. Last week I talked about writing a driving question. This in important part of the project design. The next step would be identifying community experts and organizing authentic learning experiences to enhance the experience.

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Four Ways to Make Learning Real-World and Relevant

1/3/2021

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Relevance and connecting concepts to the real-world, the lives of the students, is critical for engagement and intrinsic motivation. There are four simple ways to make learning experiences relevant and purposeful for students, and they're easy to implement.
​Relevance is important for students, not only to engage in learning but for them to care about the content. But why does it matter if they care?

Focusing on concepts that are part of the real-world, part of your students' worlds, helps them find purpose in the experience, which is an important piece of experiential learning.

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Project-Based Learning Community Experts: Connecting and Collaborating Digitally

8/3/2020

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Connecting with community experts for authentic project-based learning experiences is tricky during a pandemic. How can you make valuable connections and start effective collaborations with community members digitally? Click here.
There are some aspects of project-based learning that can be daunting or intimidating. Connecting and collaborating with community members was one of those things for me at the beginning of my PBL journey. But putting that fear aside is a must for several reasons:
  • Community is one element that distinguishes projects from project-based learning.
  • Communication and collaboration are two very important 21st-century skills, and your students will learn these skills in part by observing you in action.
  • The community is a gold mine of information and resources. Take advantage.

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Pedagogy that Encourages Active and Reponsible Citizenship

6/14/2020

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Help students gain content knowledge and develop critical life skills such as community participation and engagment, with these instructional methods. Choose pedagogy that promotes active and responsible citizenship.
The year 2020 has been a doozy. In a matter of six months there has been a pandemic, school closures, economic collapse, "murder hornets", countless instances of racial injustice, and an uprising, one that has been a long time coming. I've been thinking about how these unprecedented events have impacted the lives of my students and what power they have to shape the uncertain future of this world.

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How to Build a Strong Advisory Community

2/26/2020

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How do you build a strong advisory or classroom community? How do you get it back when it seems your classroom culture has taken a turn for the worst? Try these tricks and tips to get your group back on track.
Normally I would write a post on the importance of advisory culture at the beginning of the school year when students are getting to know you and each other and settle in. I highly recommend revisiting this post in the fall for that reason. ​

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    Blog Intent

    To provide innovative educational resources for educators, parents, and students, that go beyond lecture and worksheets.

    ​Author

    Sara Segar, experiential life-science educator and advisor, curriculum writer, and mother of two​.

    Check out my experiential learning resources on TPT, Experiential Learning Depot 

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