Stronger Together! Building and Sustaining a Collaborative Regional Service Learning Network
Thanks to all who joined us at the National Service Learning Conference for our workshop “Stronger Together! Building and Sustaining a Collaborative Regional Service Learning Network.” We are honored to have been a part of the 28th Annual Service Learning Conference, Dare to Dream #SLC17, at Disneyland Resort in Anaheim March 22-25th, 2017.
Below are some resources to help you start a service learning network in your region!
Prezi from National Service Learning Workshop – your ideas are recorded here
ECSL Member Questions 2016 – what are our members asking?
Feel free to reach out with any questions or follow-up! ECSLabc@gmail.com
Vital Workshop to Grow Your Service Learning in the New Year
RSVP by using the contact form below:
Lesson Planning for Service Learning
At our fall meeting, ECSL advisor Sammy Lyon outlined how planning for service learning fits seamlessly with the classroom planning you’re already doing. The article For Teachers Who Think They Can’t Do Service Learning accompanies the easy-to-implelement lesson planning tools that were presented and gives you a road map for integrating student-led action into the curriculum you already use. Download a free copy of the tools- Backwards Planning for Service Learning- to support your service learning curriculum.
Save the Date: Fun-raising & Fundraising for Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone Rising (formerly the Kposowa Foundation) is celebrating its 10 year anniversary with an evening of African drumming & dance, salsa dance performances, and fundraising for projects in Sierra Leone. Thanks to ECSL advisor, Sarah Culberson (co-founder of Sierra Leone Rising) for sharing this local opportunity to effect change in the areas of education, public health and female empowerment in West Africa.
Local Fair to Launch Service
Bridges Academy in Studio City is hosting a community service fair on October 15th that may give you and your students some opportunities to connect with organizations and launch service learning ideas:
Share with your community: bridges-academy-community-service-fair
ECSL Fall Workshop: Conversations that Matter!
RSVP to join us!
Environmental Service Learning PD this Summer
Image via Generation Earth
Check out these two environmental service learning summer professional development opportunities brought to you by Generation Earth. Both these experiences provide access to personalized support, links to standards, toolkits, and eligibility for stipends and bus funds for a related field trip next school year.
This is How You Hack the Curriculum
On Saturday, April 16th ECSL joined with the Green Ambassadors Institute, a professional development program through Environmental Charter High School, to engage in a first-of-its-kind experiment: The Curriculum Hack. 
It was based on the shared experience of many teachers that there is no one-size-fits-all curriculum. An educator is a kind of jigsaw puzzle expert. They are constantly fitting together the puzzle pieces (standards, time, current events, learning styles, youth interests) to create the big picture (a curriculum that best serves their students).
With so many factors to consider when deciding how to deliver content, teachers rarely use a published curriculum verbatim. They take out, add on, or adjust lesson plans to create something that fits the needs of the class. Teachers may do this in isolation or amongst their planning teams on campus. But at this spring’s BioDiversity Summit, Green Ambassadors gave educators access to a valuable resource in this process of tailoring curriculum- diverse perspectives.
In our increasingly interconnected world, there is a need to bring together all community stakeholders to create curriculum that helps students prepare for the challenges we face as a society. Everyone was invited to the table. Educators, students, community organizations, businesses and government leaders all lent their ideas and expertise. In real-time, this melting pot of perspectives helped shape curriculum for pressing essential questions we need to cover in our classrooms, like “How can we undo environmental injustices within our communities in order to keep people safe and healthy?”
At the start of the summit, ECSL led participants in a personal inventory activity that revealed each other’s interests, skills and talents through a guided interview process. Later, when it was time to hack the curriculum together, each member could reflect on their traits, background and experiences that would impact their group’s lesson planning process. 
This year’s institute theme was BioDiversity, and the experience lived up to its name. The diverse skill sets present amongst each group member led to rich explorations of environmental justice themes for all grade levels.
Green Ambassadors has made available the lesson plans created in this collaborative curriculum development experience (where you can also access the Personal Inventory activity presented by ECSL).
We look forward to connecting with members and new participants alike at the ECSL Fall Meeting scheduled for September 27th at The Skirball Cultural Center from 3:15-5:30pm. Join us for another unique opportunity to network with a variety of stakeholders in the service learning community.
Special Opportunity to Share your Service Learning Work!
**Share your service learning program at the upcoming Environmental Justice Showcase and Curriculum Hack that ECSL is co-sponsoring with Environmental Charter High School.**
PLEASE CALENDAR: SATURDAY APRIL 16, 2016
ECSL is making available a special opportunity. You are invited to share a 10 minute talk with 5 min Q/A in a roundtable type conversational format. We are providing a personal ECSL mentor to help facilitate review and teacher preparation for this collaborative workshop along with a simple template to utilize.
The purpose is to discuss the process, more importantly than the result. It will be an chance for you to examine various stages from where you might have felt stymied in your SL process, to taking positive outcomes to the next level.
This meeting will provide time for interaction, exchange of ideas/needs, connections and will genuinely aid faculty with the five stages of service learning, fostering student voice and choice and developing meaningful community benefits.
WE HOPE YOU WILL CONSIDER JOINING THE OTHER FACULTY (from K-12 schools, private & public) who have agreed to tell their service learning stories….Faculty who shared at last year’s ECSL expo felt they actually learned more from the experience than the observers….so take advantage of this unique opportunity to partner with an ECSL mentor and enhance your service learning (no matter whatever stage you are currently practicing).
PLEASE REPLY to ECSLabc@gmail.com as soon as possible IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO RECEIVE an ECSL mentor and the presentation template.
INCLUDE: YOUR NAME, CLASS LEVEL/SUBJECT TAUGHT, TOPIC PRESENTING. This “show and grow” will take place in the morning, although there are worthwhile activities and exchanges from 9-3pm. The topic you choose does not necessarily need to be environmentally based…. any Service Learning program in which your students are currently engaged has justice and curricular tie-ins. Lastly, feel free to bring some of your students along to present with you and experience the day.
.….We are looking forward to hearing back from you soon and hope you choose to be a part of this exciting day!
