Intergenerational
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Tip: The grade levels and subjects listed are only our suggestions. With a bit of creativity, project examples can be adapted to meet the needs of different ages and curricular goals.
What do students get when they transform an empty lot into a thriving outdoor space? A happy, reconnected community, ... and pride in a job well done.
When they reached 6th grade, students felt they had learned a lot about how to stay safe playing outside and being home alone. They wanted to use their knowledge to help others stay safe, so they created a safety pamphlet for their school's elderly neighbors.
Seniors and youths have much to offer each other, but the two groups rarely interact in meaningful ways. The relative lack of inhibition in one class of mild to moderately mentally handicapped students allowed them to connect with seniors in a local nursing home, improving the students' behaviors outside the classroom, and establishing a unique and positive relationship within the community.
Eighth graders interviewed veterans from World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War as part of an interdisciplinary unit in social studies and language arts. The veterans' contributions and insights made the curriculum more meaningful, real, and relevant to the students' lives.
A 12th-grade sociology class studying issues related to the elderly sought greater understanding of the problems facing this population by visiting adult day care centers, senior citizen centers, and nursing homes. During weekly visits, they witnessed firsthand the concerns of senior citizens in today's society. In celebration of their newfound friendships, the students and senior citizens co-planned a Senior-Senior Prom.
In partnership with a local book center, students created books recording family stories and traditions. Artists trained the teachers in bookmaking, allowing them to guide their students through the process, and families joined their children to construct and decorate the books.
In a school focused on service, 8th and 9th graders shined in their work with their community's hungry, homeless, orphans, and elderly—reaching out to a soup kitchen, and orphanage, and a nursing home.
Students wanted to honor those who had a positive impact on the community. The youths interviewed local heroes and compiled those interviews into a book. They honored the local heroes at an awards banquet and gave readings of the book at their school.
An intergenerational project helped history students discover interesting, but often overlooked, historical resources in their newfound friends from a local senior center. The youths met periodically with the seniors to document the elders' life histories - a process that included formal, recorded interviews - and did additional research into the events that had shaped the seniors' lives.
When the internet service provider in a rural town decided to leave the community, students at the local high school stepped in and took over its operations. Students provided service to 450 members of the community, including a senior center where they assisted the seniors with their computer needs.
In response to negative impressions of teenagers among local residents, high school students launched their own radio talk show to address teen issues in a positive way.
For many schools, parent involvement is a tremendous challenge, and parents rarely have the opportunity to help in the classroom, the place their children spend the most time. One 4th-grade class changed this by opening its doors to parents through regular poetry readings.
When one teacher introduced a culture curriculum to her 4th-grade students, she discovered that few knew much about their heritages. She and the students brainstormed a fun way to investigate their cultural backgrounds and in the process connected with some interesting community members.
Based on research showing that families who eat dinner together are more likely to be engaged civically in their communities, one elementary school started a program where students would bring home a recipe and ingredients for biscuits and a set of dinner table discussion questions.
High school students designed skits focusing on crimes that target the elderly and performed the skits at senior centers. They also surveyed residents in their communities to evaluate critical needs and distributed literature on safety to senior residents.
