Service Learning Projects

For the 2008-2009 School Year

All Students – We Take Care of Our Community

• To honor the Ramadan fast for Muslims, collect canned food during September for the Alameda Food Bank. • With faculty and the parent community, conduct a holiday gift drive for children and families who live in transitional housing.
• Participate in Earth Week, an interdisciplinary curriculum and activity that features Earth as Home.

Kindergartners – We Take Care of Our Spaces

• Clean Lakeside Park’s “Green Monster” climbing sculpture and the surrounding area.
• Conduct surprise classroom clean-ups throughout the lower school, in conjunction with their study of families and building communities.
• With fourth grade buddies, perform for, socialize, and create artwork with patients in the skilled nursing and assisted living section of a nearby senior residence.
• With fourth grade buddies, sing as a choir for the patients in an Oakland residence for persons with Alzheimer’s.

First Graders – We Feed Our Neighbors

• Make lunch once a month for residents that live at a BOSS (Building Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency) homeless shelter.

Second Graders – We Help Our Neighbors Eat Well and Learn

• Support the St. Paul’s Episcopal Church weekly Senior Food-Coop by helping to set up, assisting seniors with their groceries, maintaining the refreshment table, providing cashier services, and other duties.
• Conduct a book drive for Books for the Barrios to benefit disadvantaged children in the Philippines, as well as visit the warehouse and package materials to be shipped overseas.
• Collect non-violent toys for children who have lived in war zones.

Third graders – We Learn We Are a Part of Nature

• Record the census of migratory waterfowl at Lake Merritt, graph their findings, draw their birds, write poems about them, and present their data to the City of Oakland.
• Hold a cookie party for residents in a nearby senior center.

Fourth graders – We Care for Our Elders

• With kindergarten buddies, perform for, socialize, and create artwork with patients in the skilled nursing and assisted living section of a nearby senior residence.
• With kindergarten buddies, sing as a choir for the patients in an Oakland residence for persons with Alzheimer’s.
• As part of their Native-American and Earth Stewardship studies, conduct a regular trash pick-up at the Veterans’ Administration Building and clean storm drains that empty into Lake Merritt.

Fifth Graders – We Develop Earth Citizenship

• As part of their science and social studies curriculum, create Public Service Announcements on protecting and improving ecosystems.
• Work with eighth graders to reduce waste and greenhouse gas creation at the School and create a carbon footprint of the School.
• Work with first graders on waste management.

Sixth Graders – We Engage Watersheds and Waste

• As part of their study of lake and river systems, weekly clean Lake Merritt and educate the community about storm drain pollution in collaboration with Lake Merritt Institute.

Seventh and Eighth graders – We Expand Our Classroom Across Generations

• Socialize, play games, and create art projects with children at St. Vincent's Day Home and De Colores Head Start.
• Socialize, play games, and create art projects with the residents of Oakland’s Clausen House, a group home and education center for adults with mental and physical challenges and with developmentally disabled preschool-aged children at The First Step Children's Center.
• Serve snacks to and interact with seniors with Alzheimer’s at a local residence.
• Provide garden maintenance at City Slicker Gardens seven sites that provide organic food for low income families in Oakland.

After School Program

• Manage St. Paul’s School’s recycling program.