CSL Projects - A Sampling
The listing below is a small sampling of recent CSL projects; it is not a complete listing of all CSL projects that have been undertaken. At the discretion of the classroom teacher and in response to current need and curriculum objectives, projects are continued, adapted, discontinued or modified from one year to the next.
Project Title: Finding Out How Important We are to Our Community
School: Douglas School
Teacher and Grade: Maura Sharp, Grade 5
Project Description: Students go to four different community sites on a weekly basis for two months. Site visits include centers for the elderly and preschool children. Students interact with and interview the clients. Students keep journals and write reflective essays on their interactions. Students also donate a book of drawings that represent their experiences to each of the four sites.
Curriculum Connection: MA English Language Arts Standards 4, 5 and 6 all focusing on writing, word choice and reflection.
Students Involved & Population Served: 25 grade 5 students, approximately 60 community members.
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Project Title: Good Health Campaign
School: McCarthy-Towne
Teacher and Grade: Catherine Suess, Grade 4
Project Description: Fourth graders create a Good Health teaching campaign to increase the awareness of the benefits of exercise and healthy nutrition choices. Students publicize their findings and create posters about healthy lifestyles and choices. Students also start a walking club at recess time and encourage other students to participate. Students brainstorm ways to make all students feel welcome, most importantly students with special needs and disabilities.
Curriculum Connections: Health: Physical Activity and Fitness Strand: Standard 2.4. English Language Arts: Questioning, Listening and Contribution. Standard 2.3. Mathematics: Data analysis, statistics and probability. Standard 4.D.1
Students Involved & Population Served: 25 grade 4 students help to design and implement project; all McCarthy Towne students benefit from exposure to the Good Health campaign, as well as 30 students who participate in the walking club.
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Project Title: Gift of Trees to the Heifer Project
School: Douglas School
Teacher: Grade 5, all classrooms
Project Description: Students learn about local ecosystems, the balance of nature, study of food chains and photosynthesis. Students conduct a series of fundraisers, including making the making, baking and selling of pies, to donate trees to the Heifer Project for the coastal desert of Peru.
Students Involved & Population Served: Approximately 75 students, communities in Peru benefit from the student efforts.
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Project Title: Merriam School Handshake Project
School: Merriam School
Teacher and Grade: All fifth and sixth grade teachers (7 classes)
Project Description: We have decided to expand the project from two classes to the entire fifth and sixth grades. The project is aimed at helping to increase sportsmanship at many levels of sporting activity; from youth leagues all the way up to the professional levels. Our students will be hoping to raise awareness on these issues and to create change. Planning is still underway, but possible projects include: the development and implementation of a sportsmanship survey, the development of a sportsmanship website, the collection of anecdotes and stories related to good and poor sportsmanship, and efforts to persuade athletes at various levels to shake hands after competing with one another
Curriculum Connection: Language Arts, Math, and Technology
Students Involved and Population Served: The Merriam Community and Beyond
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Project Title: Tanzania School Project
School: Douglas School
Teacher: Grade 5, Thais Savage
Project Description: Students learn about life and schools in Tanzania and Kenya and compare the wants and needs of a community different from their own. Students raise money to contribute to materials and supplies for a new school.
Curriculum Connections: General Standard 19: Writing. General Stand 23: Research. Social
Studies: Habits of the Mind.
Students Involved & Population Served: Open to all interested school members and Acton-Boxborough community
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Project Title: You, Too, Can Make a Difference
School: R.J. Grey Junior High
Teacher: Grade 7, Red
Project Description: Students learn about people who have made a difference in the lives of others through their American History studies. Students become involved in a service learning project in which they, as good citizens, go out into the community to make a difference. Students research 10 community agencies and make poster and oral presentations to the classroom, before and after a day of service in these agencies.
Curriculum Connections: American History
Students Involved & Population Served: 92 members of this team were involved; hundreds of agency recipients benefited from the services provided.
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Project Title: Hope in Haiti
School: Acton Boxborough Regional High School
Teacher: Jacqueline Arnoldy, French
Project Description: After studying about Haitian culture, students planned, organized and implemented a fundraising Bingo event that raised over $2,000 to benefit the PAZAPA Center (a non-profit that supports the treatment, education and development of children with handicaps) in Haiti. Students heard presentations from Peace Corps volunteers who had been to Haiti and wrote reflective essays. Students also exchanged letters, written in French to the students of the Pazapa Center. Plans are to expand this effort to include a service to Haitian immigrants of the Boston community.
Curriculum Connections: Standard 2; Interpretive Communication. Standard 3: Presentational Communication. Standard 4: Cultures. Standard 5: Linguistic Comparisons. Standard 6: Cultural Comparisons. Standard 7: Connections. Standard 8: Community
Students Involved & Population Served: 70 Classroom students, clients of the PAZAPA Center.
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Project Title: Empty Bowls
School: Acton Boxborough Regional High School
Teacher: Eliza Burke, Pottery
Project Description: Students in pottery classes make bowls and sell them for a fundraiser to benefit the Acton Food Pantry and St. Camillus House in Lesotho, Africa. Students develop wheel skills and spend extra time to make bowls to be sold during the annual Community Service Awards Night. Classroom and event presentations of hunger and nutrition research enhance the project.
Students Involved & Population Served: 34 pottery students, local food pantry recipients and clients of St. Camillus House benefit from their efforts.