DoSomething:The DoSomething.org team has one simple goal—to help people between the ages of thirteen and twenty-five make social change. Visitors to the site can sign up to participate in projects ranging from collecting jeans for homeless youth to developing digital training sessions for senior citizens. Participants receive ideas and resources to support their efforts and can see examples of similar projects accomplished by students in other cities. While DoSomething.org specifically targets high school students, elementary and middle school teachers can use the site to discover interesting project ideas that can help their students make a difference in the local community.
Crellin Elementary School:For the teachers and students at Crellin Elementary, learning starts by identifying problems worth solving in the local community. "I'm not going to ask them to memorize those multiplication tables because I have nothing else to do," writes principal Dana McCauley. "It's because later on, when we're calculating how big that composter needs to be, they'll need to know the area we're going to be using, and they'll to do it quickly. So it's about applying the knowledge." Learn more about Crellin’s work in this bit on the Edutopia website.
Spread Positivity Projects:For Chase Mielke, one of the primary purposes for public schooling is to give students chances to make an impact on the world around them. “If an end goal of education is to create skilled, altruistic citizens,” he writes,” why wait until after a student's post-secondary training?” To develop these skilled, altruistic citizens, Chase gives the kids in his classroom chances to create Spreading Positivity Projects. Small groups work together to make the world a better place by driving change on the local, national or global level. Learn more about the work Chase is doing in this bit on the Edutopia website.
Design for Change: Design for Change is an organization that promotes Design Thinking -- a process for solving meaningful problems that puts an emphasis on empathy, iteration and revision -- as a tool for changing classrooms. Their goal is a simple one: To empower young people to learn 21st Century skills, to build character and to do good. After creating a free account, teachers can find guidance on how to implement design thinking projects and processes in their classrooms. More importantly, teachers can find examples of classrooms who have used design thinking to give their students chances to change the world for the better.
Milo Cress – Be Straw Free:As a nine year old, nothing shocked Milo Cress more than the sad fact that plastic trash is not biodegradable and is literally destroying our planet. Motivated to take action, Milo decided to start a campaign encouraging people to “be straw free”– a simple action that could have a huge impact, given that each day, 500,000,000 straws are used by consumers in restaurants. Not satisfied with simply raising awareness in his own community, Milo began lobbying other influencers – including the National Restaurant Association. The result: Offering straws – rather than simply bringing them with drinks – is now accepted as best practice by restaurants nationwide.
Hailey Fort – Building for the Homeless:A chance encounter with a hungry homeless man changed Hailey Fort’s life forever. After buying him a sandwich, Hailey decided to start a garden and to donate food to the local food bank in a project that she calls Hailey’s Harvest. Her next step: To begin building tiny homes for the homeless. Hailey does all the work on her tiny homes – from designing blueprints to nailing the structures together – and plans to build a total of eleven homes for the homeless in her Western Washington community.
from Digitally Speaking
http://digitallyspeaking.pbworks.com/Doing%20Work%20that%20Matters%20-%20Rochester%20MN
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