Scituate High School
History and Social Studies Dept.
Service Learning
Typical Unit Breakdown - An Overview of Service Learning
Service Learning is a social studies elective that involves a variety of student-centered activities and
instruction based on community service learning. The teacher takes a more advising and guiding
approach which allows the class to be directed by the interests, motivations, and work of the students.
Through various service experiences, by listening to guest speakers, watching documentaries, reading
current articles, creating research projects, writing reflections, and organizing and implementing service
term projects, students will have a greater awareness of the social issues that presently exist at the
local, national, and international level.
Suggested Pace:
Term 1 - Local/National Issues
• Units 1, 2, 3, and 4
Term 2 - Global Issues
• Units 5, 6, and 7
Essential Unit Questions:
1. What is the extent of the problem?
2. How has the problem changed through time?
3. What are the most important causes of the problem?
4. How successful are current approaches to solving the problem?
5. What can individual do to help solve this problem?
Unit 1: Local Poverty
Unit Outline:
Content:
 Causes of poverty
 Daily living conditions and challenges
 Effects - physical, mental, emotional
 Poverty at the local level: Scituate, the South Shore, Boston
 Poverty at the national level: Massachusetts, the United States
 Other issues that stem from poverty: hunger, homelessness, physical illness,
 discrimination
 Local and Federal Government response to helping or solving the issue - what services are
offered to people who combat poverty? Connection to the past (history)
Portfolio:
 Resume
 What is CSL? Reflection
 Service Term Project #1 (includes Service Term Project proposal)
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Service Learning journal reflections #1 and #2
Service Term Project updates #1 and #2
Resources and Activities:
Resources:
Documentaries/Films:
 Pay it Forward
Guest Speakers:
 Carolina Hill
 Scituate Food Pantry
 Habitat for Humanity
Books:
 Voices of Hope by the Giraffe's Project
 Amazing Grace by Jonathan Kozol
 Savage Inequalities by Johnathan Kozol
Activities:
Field Trips:
 Scituate Food Pantry,
 Carolina Hill Shelter in Marshfield
 Habitat for Humanity
Unit 2: Homelessness
Unit Outline:
Content:
 Causes of homelessness
 Daily living conditions and challenges
 Effects - physical, mental, emotional
 Homelessness at the local level: Scituate, the South Shore, Boston
 Homelessness at the national level: Massachusetts, the United Sates
 Other issues that stem from homelessness: hunger, disease and physical illness, mental
 Illness, discrimination, drug abuse
 Local and Federal government response to helping or solving the issue - what services are
offered to people who combat homelessness?
 Connection to the past (history)
Portfolio:
 Personal Goals: Short-term and Long-term
 Service Term Project #1 (organization and implementation of project)
 Service Learning journal reflections #3 and #4
 Service Term Project updates #3 and #4
Resources and Activities:
Resources:
Documentaries/Films:
 Homeless to Harvard
 Homelessness in America
Guest Speakers:
 Father Bill's Shelter in Quincy
 St. Francis House of Boston
 Matthew Works
Books:
 Voices of Hope by the Giraffe's Project
 Amazing Grace by Jonathan Kozol
 Savage Inequalities by Jonathan Kozol
Activities:
Field Trips:
 Day trip to St. Francis House or the Pine Street Inn, Boston MA
 Trip to Fr. Bill’s Shelter, Quincy MA
Unit 3: Domestic Violence
Unit Outline:
Content:
 Origins of domestic violence
 Target groups - who is more prone to domestic violence? effects - physical, mental, emotional
 Domestic violence at the local level: Scituate, the South Shore, Boston
 Domestic violence at the national level: Massachusetts, the United States
 Other issues that stem from domestic violence: mental illness, drug abuse, eating disorders
 Local and federal government response to help or solving the issue - what services are offered
to people who combat domestic violence?
 Connection to the past (history)
Portfolio:
 Personal Achievements
 Service Term Project #1 (organization and implementation of project)
 Service Learning journal reflections #5 and #6
 Service Term Project updates #5 and #6
Resources and Activities:
Resources:
Documentaries/Films:
 Defending Our Lives
Guest Speakers:
 DOVE in Quincy
Books/Articles:
 Voices of Hope by the Giraffe's Project
 Southcoast Today.com: Shattered Love, Broken Lives -over 60 articles
Activities:
Field Trips:
 Day trip to DOVE in Quincy
Unit 4: Local Environmental and Social Concerns
Unit Outline:
Content:
 #1 local environment concern: pollution
 # 1 local social concern: drug abuse
 origins of local environmental and social concerns
 Effects on the environment effects on society and communities
 Environmental and social concerns at the local level: Scituate, the South Shore, Boston
environmental and social concerns at the national level: Massachusetts, the United States
 Other issues that stem from pollution and drug abuse: global warming, contaminated bodies of
water, mental illness, drinking and driving, underage drinking
 Local and federal government response to help or solving the issue - what services are offered
to help solve these environmental and social concerns?
 Connections to the past (history)
Portfolio:
 Academic Achievements
 Service Term Project #1 (completion assignment)
 Service Learning journal reflections #7 and #8
 Service Term Project updates #7 and #8
Resources and Activities:
Resources:
Documentaries/Films:
 An Inconvenient Truth
 A Civil Action
 Eric Brockovich
 Who Killed the Electric Car?
Guest Speakers:
 the Rotary Club
 the North and South Rivers Watershed Association
 Humarock Beach Improvement Association
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DARE
SADD - Massachusetts chapter
Books/Articles:
 Voices of Hope by the Giraffe's Project
 Amazing Grace by Jonathan Kozol
 Conservation International, news articles
Activities:
Field Trips:
 day trip to The Farm School (Western, MA)
Unit 5: 3rd World Debt
Unit Outline:
Content:
 causes of 3rd world debt
 economic, political, and social challenges in the 3rd world
 effects – both long-term and short-term
 issues that stem from 3rd world debt – conflict between nations and extreme poverty
 Federal and international government response to helping or solving the issue - the World
Economic Forum, the G8 Summit, the United Nations
 Connection to the past (history)
Portfolio:
 Opening page and personal statement
 Service Term Project #2 (service term project proposal)
 Service Learning journal reflections #1 and #2
 Service Term Project updates #1 and #2
Resources and Activities:
Resources:
Documentaries/Films:
 Life and Debt
 Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy
Guest Speakers:
 the Rotary Club
Books:
 Escape from Slavery by Francis Bok
 World Debt Undermines Development, article
Activities:
 the Debt Quiz
Unit 6: 3rd World Poverty and Disease
Unit Outline:
Content:
 Causes of 3rd world poverty and disease
 Daily living conditions and challenges
 Effects - physical, mental, emotional
 3rd world poverty and disease at the international level
 Other issues that stem from 3ld world poverty and disease: hunger, disease (AIDS epidemic and
malaria), mental illness, discrimination, homelessness, genocide
 Federal and international government response to helping or solving the issue - the United
Nations, the G8 Summit
 Connection to the past (history)
Portfolio:
 Final Evening Presentation - display board
 Service Term Project #2 (organization and implementation of project)
 Service Learning journal reflections #3 and #4
 Service Term Project updates #3 and #4
Resources and Activities:
Resources:
Documentaries/Films:
 Hotel Rwanda
 Blood Diamond
 Oprah's Leadership Academy: Building a Dream
 The Diary of Bono and Chris Tucker: Aiding Africa
Guest
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Books:
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Speakers:
The Rotary Club: Kenya
Kerry Hallihan and Kaitlin St. George: Bolivia and Mexico
Patty and Bill Coleman: Casa Tatic
Escape from Slavery by Francis Bok
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, Ishmael Beah
The Journey of the Lost Boys, Joan Hecht
Facing History and Ourselves
The Choices Program
Activities:
 Class trip to Mexico
Unit 7: Global Environmental Concerns
Unit Outline:
Content:
 Origins of environmental concerns
 Environment concerns: the food crisis, global warming and deforestation, clean water supply
 Effects on the environment, human-kind, nation-states, international relations environmental
concerns at the international level
 Federal government and international response to helping or solving the issue
 Connections to the past (history)
Portfolio:
 Final Evening Presentation - display board
 Service Term Project #2 (completion assignment)
 Service Learning journal reflections #5 and #6
 Service Term Project updates #5 and #6
Resources and Activities:
Resources:
Documentaries/Films:
 An Inconvenient Truth
 A Civil Action
 Eric Brockovich
 Who Killed the Electric Car?
Guest Speakers:
 the Rotary Club
 the North and South Rivers Watershed Association
 Humarock Beach Improvement Association o DARE
 SADD - Massachusetts chapter
Books/Articles:
 Voices of Hope by the Giraffe's Project
 UpFront Magazine articles - The New York Times
 Conservation International, news articles
Activities:
Field Trips:
 A day trip to The Farm School (Western, MA)
History and Social Studies Curriculum Overview
Service Learning
Course Description:
Service Learning is a unique course that involves a variety of student-centered activities and instruction.
It brings together strategies for learning to utilize the community to create an ongoing system for
performance based assessment in conjunction with current assessments in the classroom. The teacher
takes a more advising, guiding approach to teaching the course, allowing the class to be directed by the
interests, motivations, and work of the students. The volunteer experience for students is designed to:
build understanding of the public sector, non-profit organizations or community agencies; contributing
their skills to community service; and to developing these skills, behaviors, and values required by
community service organizations. It is anticipated that this program will initially involve 20 - 35 students
per semester.
Major Course Objectives…
When students have completed Service Learning, they will know how and be better able to:
1. Identify various local and global social issues
2. Advance their understanding of a particular social issue by creating original service-term projects
2. Create a service-term project that meets a local need.
4. Understand how the government has responded to solving these various issues
3. Draw conclusions about causes and outcomes of various local and global social issues.
5. Understand the relationship between cause and effect by linking actions and ideas to their results
8. Show connections, casual and otherwise, between particular historical events and ideas and larger
social, economic, and political trends and developments (History, Geography, Civics/Government,
Economics)
9. Distinguish between primary and secondary sources
10. Interpret factual information
11. Interpret information using higher order thinking skills
Relationship to Massachusetts Frameworks for History and Social Sciences:
1. Show connections, causal and otherwise, between particular historical events and ideas and larger
social, economic, and political trends and developments. (II, G, C, E)
2. Explain the basic economic functions of the government in the economy of the United States. (E)
3. Identify and describe laws and regulations adopted in the United States to promote economic
competition. (E, H)
4. Analyze how federal tax and spending policies affect the national budget and the national debt. (E)
5. Interpret and construct timelines that show how events and eras in various parts of the world are
related to one another. (H)
6. Distinguish between long-term and short-term cause and effect relationships. (H, G, C, E)
7. Define the terms citizenship, politics, and government, and give examples of how political solutions
to public policy problems are generated through interactions of citizens and civil associations with their
government. (USG.1.2)
8. Describe the purposes and functions of government. (USG. 1.3)
9. Define and provide examples of different forms of government, including direct democracy,
representative democracy, republic, monarchy, oligarchy, and autocracy. (USG. 1.4)
10. Explain how a constitutional democracy provides majority rule with equal protection for the rights
of individuals, including those in the minority, through limited government and the rule of law. (USG.
1.6)
11. Use a variety of sources, including newspapers and internet web sites, to identify current state and
local legislative issues and examine the influence on the legislative process of political parties, interest
groups, grass roots organizations, lobbyists, public opinion, the news media, and individual voters.
(USG.3.12)
12. Describe how the world is divided politically, and give examples of the ways nation states interact,
including trade, tourism, diplomacy, treaties and agreements, and military action. (USG.4.1)
13. Analyze reasons for conflict among nation states, such as competition for resources and territory,
differences in system of government, and religious or ethnic conflicts.( USG.42)
14. Describe the tools used to carry out United States foreign policy. (USG.4.4)
15. Differentiate among various governmental and nongovernmental international organizations, and
describe their purposes and functions. (USG.4.6)
16. Explain and evaluate participation by the United States government in international organizations.
Example: The United Nations (USG.4.7)
17. Use a variety of sources, including newspapers, magazines, and the internet to identify significant
world political, demographic, and environmental developments. Analyze ways that these developments
may affect United States foreign policy in specific regions of the world. (USG.4.8)
18. Describe roles of citizens in Massachusetts and the United States, including voting in public elections,
participating in voluntary associations to promote the common good, and participating in political
activities to influence public policy decisions of government. (USG.5.2)
19. Describe how citizens can monitor and influence local, state, and national government as individuals
and members of interest groups. (USG.5.3)
20. Identify and explain the meaning and importance of civic dispositions or virtues that contribute to
the preservation and improvement of civil society and government. (USG.5.5)
21. Identify specific ways for individuals to serve their communities and participate responsibly in civil
society and the political process at local, state, and national levels of government. (USG.5.6)
22.Together with other students, identify a significant public policy issue in the community, gather
information about that issue, fairly evaluate the various points of view and competing interests,
examine ways of participating in the decision making process about the issue, and draft a position paper
on how the issue should be resolved. (USG.5.9)
23. Practice civic skills and dispositions by participating in activities such as simulate public hearings,
mock trials, and debates. (USG.5.10)
Assessment Tools:
Success in Service Learning will be assessed by the following methods:
Service Term Projects
Each term students will create and organize a service project. The projects will be carried out from start
to finish with minimal teacher guiding and/or advising. These service term projects may be in connection
with their service sites or in conjunction with a local community service organization.
Projects will include:
•A project proposal, which clearly states the group's goals and objectives for the project, and
explanation of why they chose the project.
•Presentation of the project’s goals, purpose and connection to curriculum.
•Final reflection paper (Completion Assignment) - including pictures and video of the projects
beginning and completed stages.
Reflection Journals and Papers
Students will be asked to keep a journal and write reflection papers on documentaries and articles read
in class. The course is designed to link their experiences in the community to the topics covered in class.
Students will be encouraged to integrate their service reflections with class readings, discussions, and
guest speakers as well as their thoughts, ideas, feelings and observations. They may also have reactions
to the course and service that relates to other aspects of their life. Ideally, students should make entries
after completing their work at service sites and after class discussion and/or guest speakers.
Included in the list below are topics that will guide the students with what to address in their reflection
journals:
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Any intellectual or emotional observations from their service experiences as well as any
connections made between their service, class materials, and discussions.
Comments and analysis on specific readings and guest speakers. Teacher may provide students
with guided questions.
Thoughts about issues discussed in class and further reflection on issues that are addressed
during class time.
Student Portfolios
Each student will create a student portfolio in order to document their community service. The portfolio
entries will include articles, pictures, paperwork from their sites etc... In addition, they will contain
sections such as: Resume, personal goals (short-term and long-term), academic and personal
achievement, and the service learning coursework, including service term project proposals, completion
assignment reflection, and the formal reflections from course documentaries and articles.
Outside Reading
Outside readings and their application to class study; all students will complete two (2) outside readings
in this course and report these in a variety of media, but at least one must be a written review of the
reading.
Mid-Semester Presentations
Around mid-semester, students will give individual presentations. The student presentations will include
an overview of the work they have completed in Service Learning thus far. This includes their site work,
term service projects, field trips, guest speakers etc...The students are expected to give an oral
presentation accompanied by a visual display.
Final Presentation (Final Exam)
The final presentation will include the entire semester of course work in Service Learning. The students
are expected to present this information in a creative and informative way. The presentation should
include multiple visual displays (Example: video, posters, pictures, music...), the final product of their
mid-term presentations as well as their Service Learning portfolio. The final presentation is a class
project in which the students begin working on weeks before the end of the semester and will showcase
at the Final Presentation Evening at the end of the semester
Materials and Resources
Books:
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Voices of Hope, by the Giraffe's Heroes Project
Amazing Grace by Jonathan Kozol
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, Ishmael Beah
The Journey of the Lost Boys, Joan Hecht
Savage Inequalities by Jonathan Kozol
Escape from Slavery, by Francis Bok
The Choices Program
Facing History and Ourselves
Documentaries/Films:
 Pay it Forward
 Homeless to Harvard
 Homelessness in America
 Erin Brockovich
 Emmanuel's Gift
 The Diary of Bono and Chris Tucker: A iding Africa
 Defending Our Lives
 Building a Dream: The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy
 A Civil Action
 Iron Jawed Angels
 Promises
 Blood Diamond
 Hotel Rwanda
 Who Killed the Electric Car?
 An Inconvenient Truth
Guest Speakers:
 Carolina Hill
 Scituate Food Pantry
 Fr. Bills Shelter
 Habitat for Humanity
 DOVE organization
 Scituate Rotary Club
 Matthew Works
 Pine Street Inn
 St. Francis House
Relationship to School Student Expectations:
Scituate High School students will have the opportunity in Service Learning to become:
 effective readers (1)
 effective writers (2)
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effective presenters (written, oral, visual) of their research, their interpretations, and solutions
to historical problems (3)
effective problem solvers (4)
effective information gatherers/researchers (5)
effective contributes to the community at large(6)
Scituate High School