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Grade Level: 3-5
Academic Areas: Language Arts, Social Studies
Duration of service: Semester-Long
Character Virtues: Respect, Civic Virtue and Citizenship
Service Areas: Human Services, Education/Tutoring
Service Learning Project:
After reading selected literature about intergenerational issues,
realistic portraits of aging, and works by elderly authors, each
student will be “paired” up with a local senior citizen
in the community. A wide cross-section of seniors will be utilized,
with some living in nursing homes, some in assisted living facilities,
and some independently. Students will conduct interviews of their
senior partner to gain information about the similarities and
differences in the lives of the students and the elderly. Students
will then each create a finished product to display the information
they learned. Display options could include a display board, a
collection of relevant objects with attached text, a photo album,
or a story. The culminating event will be an exhibition opening
(much like those held at art museums) where the students will
share their information with their new “senior friends”
and their classmates.
Goals and Objectives
Academic
Learning Goal: Students will interview and write about a senior
citizen living in their community to learn what their life was
like when they were the student’s age.
Standard: ELA Standard 1, 2, & 4
Learning Goal: Students will learn more about the history of their
community by researching critical events that occurred during
their senior citizen’s life.
Standard: Social Studies Standard # 1, 5,
Learning Goal: Students will develop a timeline of events that
shaped their community.
Standard: Social Studies Standard # 1,5 MST Standard # 3
Service
Community need: Senior citizens need to feel they are valued
members of our communities
Possible Community Partners: Community centers, senior citizens
living in community, nursing homes, historical societies,
Objective: Students will work to bridge the gap that exists between
themselves and the seniors living within their community by conducting
interviews of local senior citizens.
Objective: Students will develop additional ways to continue their
relationships with their senior citizens, including an exhibition
opening night at which they salute their senior buddies.
Character
Virtue: Respect
Objective: Participants will gain a mutual respect for what each
generation has to offer them
Virtue: Civic Virtue and Citizenship
Objective: Students will understand their responsibility to the
seniors in their community.
Key Activities
Key Planning Activities
1. Teachers will “pair” students with senior citizens
in the community.
2. The class will research and create a timeline that indicates
significant events in history and refer to this when talking to
their seniors.
3. Students will prepare questions to use when they interview
their senior partner and will practice interviewing each other.
Key Service Activities
1. Students will use their questions to conduct interviews of
seniors and will record the responses.
2. Students will use the information gathered to create a presentation
showing the comparison between their life and the life of their
seniors. (i.e. book, PowerPoint, poster, pictures, photographs,
stories, etc.)
Key Reflection Activities
1. (oral – respect) Students will discuss how they feel
about working with senior citizens. They will discuss their fears,
trepidations, etc. and work with the teacher and relevant literature
to dispel any stereotypes.
2. (written – respect) Students will write a reflective
contrasting poem in which they juxtapose the similarities and
differences between themselves and their senior when the senior
was their age.
3. (performance) Students will act out typical daily scenarios
both they and their senior pal might have faced when the same
age and demonstrate how each would react (for example, how play
time might be utilized, making a trip to the grocery store, etc.).
Demonstration Activity
Students will host an opening exhibition at which all of their
projects will be displayed. Seniors and parents will be invited
to the opening to enjoy the exhibitions, ask questions of the
students, and have refreshments and music that relate to the various
eras represented. Parents and the local middle and high schools’
home and careers departments will be asked to provide the food.
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