Family & Community Alternative Learning
Service-Learning

"Service-learning is a teaching and learning approach that integrates community service with academic study to enrich learning, teach civic responsibility, and strengthen communities."
-From the National Commission on Service-Learning 2001

SL Project Example

Students and teachers at Boston Day and Evening Academy addressed a need in the community for a safe, beautiful and useful space for community members to grow vegetables. They created a space with garden plots for community members, public art projects, and a greenhouse and tool shed. Students learned lessons in math and science as they participated in this project. Lessons were learned in geometry, measurements and scales, nutrition and health, the greenhouse effect and environmentalism, photosynthesis, and more. Currently the garden has approximately ten plots being cultivated by community members. Students and a staff member spent the summer working in the garden, and putting more public art into the space.

The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education's SL program partners with:

Contact:
Kristen McKinnon, SL Specialist
Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
75 Pleasant Street
Malden, MA 02148-4906
Phone: (781) 338-6306
Fax: (781) 338-3090