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Grade Level: 9
Academic Areas: Science/Living Environment
Duration of service: 2.5 – 3 months
Character Virtues: Caring and Giving, Civic Virtue and Citizenship
Service Areas: Education/Tutoring, Human Services (serving children
with special needs)
Materials Needed: butterfly kits (including larvae and food), habitat
(netting), paper for charts and graphs, art and craft materials
for celebration
Total Cost of Project: $350 – 500
Time Needed for Project: 2.5 – 3 months in spring (ideally
mid-April to mid-June)
Time Needed for Teacher Preparation: 5 hours/week
Experience Needed in CE: moderate
Experience Needed in SL: moderate
Service Learning Project:
Students will raise butterflies at a school-based hospital site
for acutely ill children K-8 grade. The project will begin at
the end of March and last through the end of May. Students will
prepare hospitalized children for the arrival of live butterfly
culture. Preparation begins with tutoring a biological curriculum
on the life cycle stage of the Painted Lady butterfly, but also
includes art forms of each stage of life cycle as well as student-written
poems and essays dealing with metamorphosis . The students will
be in charge of managing a budget for the project, ordering supplies,
maintaining live cultures with proper light, temperature, food
and habitat. Students will design template charts and diagrams
to help children monitor the stages of growth from caterpillar
to full grown butterflies. Students and children alike will design
a “releasing ceremony” culminating the end of the
project. Celebration will include instrumental music and song
as well the presentation of art forms, recitation of poems and
essays on the project. Project students as well as ill children
will reflect on not only what was learned on a scientific level,
but explore the moral and life issues of transformation and metamorphosis.
Teacher will need assistance from professional sources for this
final aspect of the project.
Goals and Objectives
Academic
Learning Goal: Students will develop an understanding of the
life cycle of butterflies that they will raise, maintain &
release.
Standard: MST, 4
Learning Goal: Students will demonstrate an understanding of the
morphological details of all stages of the butterfly by charting
and graphics.
Standard: MST, 4
Service
Community need: Hospitalized children with acute illnesses are
somewhat isolated. Their educational facility lacks resources
and opportunities for science projects.
Possible Community Partners: environmental centers; local zoos;
community-based organizations that deal with children with special
needs
Objective: Students will share their knowledge of life cycle of
butterfly serving children with special needs as partners rather
than recipients.
Objective: Students will view the life cycle of butterfly as a
metaphor for real life issues that ill children are dealing with
Character
Virtue: Giving
Objective: Students will donate time, talents and energies to
share their knowledge and resources with hospitalized children.
Virtue: Caring
Objective: Students will gain compassion and sensitivity for those
who are acutely ill
Virtue: Civic virtue and citizenship
Objective: Students and children will work together as team toward
a common purpose.
Key Activities
Key Planning Activities
1. Students will research & design project templates for
ill children dealing with life cycle from caterpillar to full
grown butterfly.
2. Students will explore and establish (with the help of teacher)
collaborations with local environmental centers and local zoos
seeking assistance in acquiring resources and professional assistance
for project.
Key Service Activities
1. Students will assist children in monitoring stages of growth
relative to light, temperature, food and habitat. Students will
also provide, maintain and plan all stages from culture cups to
full grown butterflies. Students will strive to maintain “partnership”
status and a reciprocity between student and child.
2. Students and children will plan the transference of chrysalides
to butterfly pavilion until they emerge as butterflies. Students
and children will prepare for end of project when butterflies
are released and the moral implication of metamorphosis and hope
of wellness.
3. Students will construct a more permanent habitat for the butterflies
with the addition of a living environment to include plants, rocks,
small shrubs and the like so that the ill children can observe
the butterflies more extensively.
Key Reflection Activities
1. (oral) Students and children served will engage in discussion
before, during and after each phase of project sharing their knowledge
gained, feelings and perspectives on the efforts of their teaming
and working toward a common purpose. (Civic virtue)
2. (written) Students will translate experiences of compassion
and sensitivity in dealing with children who are acutely ill into
literary form, poetry or prose. (Caring)
3. (performance) Students will reflect on use of musical selections
both musical and instrumental, various art forms, recitations
as they explore the moral implications of metamorphosis and transformation
in the life of these children with acute illnesses.
Demonstration Activity
Students, teachers, parents and community members including collaborative
CBOs will come together at the releasing ceremony. Students and
children will take a lead role in demonstrating and displaying
to all what they learned by using musical selections, recitations,
art, slide-show, charts, and diagrams made by students and children
before, during and after project.
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