Abstract

This 2000 study, The Environmental Service-Learning Research Project by National Service Fellow Patricia Madigan, identifies five common traits of high-quality environmental service-learning programs: (1) encourages youth leadership and decision-making; (2) integrates and values the community voice; (3) fosters civic stewardship; (4) provides opportunity for cross-cultural connections; and (5) plans for the long-term sustainability of the program. The study includes frameworks for program planning and sustainability and four in-depth studies.

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Issue

Environmental service-learning helps youth connect what they learn with how they live. However, connecting service-learning with environmental education can be a challenge for educators and community organizations. High-quality programs are able to promote youth leadership, involve the community, foster civic stewardship, develop cross-cultural connections, and plan for the program's sustainability.

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Action

The study examined ways environmental service-learning programs engaged youth, the community and partners in their efforts. Promising practices from their experiences include:

• Involving youth in community planning and decision-making through community forums and advisory committees
• Using youth for peer leadership and decision-making opportunities
• Encouraging youth to identify the needs in their communities
• Creating an advisory committee to include the community in program decisions
• Relying on community experts such as the water district or local museum for technical advice to continually improve the program
• Building partnerships carefully, with clear roles, responsibilities, and expectations
• Addressing academic standards to meet the school's accountability for academic achievement

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Context

Patricia Madigan studied five programs in depth and described how each encouraged youth leadership and decision-making, integrated and valued the community voice, fostered civic stewardship, provided opportunity for cross-cultural connections, and planned for the long-term sustainability of the program.

In doing so, she interviewed twenty coordinators of environmental service-learning programs that had been operational for at least one year, used service-learning as an educational strategy and had a minimum of twenty-five percent of the program's youth service activities take place in the local environment.

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Citation

Madigan, Patricia. The Environmental Service-Learning Research Project. Washington, DC: Corporation for National Service, 2000.

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Outcome

Environmental education helps students make connections between what they learn and how they live. Environmental service-learning opportunities can help create more inclusive learning environments and possibly lessen the need for at-risk programs.

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Source Documents

Related Practices

• Getting classroom support for environmental programs at an elementary school
• Tying service-learning into environmental conservation

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