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Redesigning a MS Advisory Program for Authentic Community Engagement

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Redesigning a MS Advisory Program for Authentic Community Engagement

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Reinventing an advisory program: one school’s take on action — LeeAnne Lavender:Storyteller

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An entire middle school advisory program was reinvented at YK Pao in Shanghai this year. Using the service learning cycle as a foundation, grade 6, 7 and 8 students engaged in meaningful and authentic community-building and service using their weekly 30-minute advisory (Tutor Time) block. Learn more

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The power of visual art for advocacy and reflexivity (MS & HS)

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The power of visual art for advocacy and reflexivity (MS & HS)

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Sidd Bose is a part of the AIS-Guangzhou "Service Champions" team of educators. This team is enrolled in the year-long Service Learning and Community Engagement Specialist Certification Program that I facilitate with Cathryn Berger Kaye and Shei Ascencio. Because of his involvement in the Specialist Program, Sidd now plans all of his curriculum on a foundation of community engagement, service learning, and a deep sense of purpose.
When I walked into Sidd Bose's visual arts classroom at the American International School of Guangzhou this year, I found a room full of students making art rooted in activism, advocacy, and meaningful awareness of local and global issues.

Sidd is an IB DP and MYP Visual Arts Teacher at AISG, and he is one of those educators whose passion for his work is immediately apparent. This year, he has completely redesigned his Grade 9, 10, and 7 visual art classes, and he loves what is evolving for students, the school community, and wider local and global contexts.

"My goal this year was to give students agency and personalization," says Sidd. "And I'm so happy with how this has turned out. In my redesigned units, my students were not just thinking about art, but about how their learning can impact others."

The still life that wouldn't stay still

The unit that started it all was simply called "Still Life" for Grade 9 and 10 students in the first semester. Still life is one of those classic art education pillars, grounded in tradition and technique. Sidd's version of it became something considerably less conventional.

He began by asking a simple and generative question: How can still life connect to daily life? How can artistic expression raise awareness about social and environmental issues? The answer, it turned out, was that it could go in many directions, and Sidd let that happen.

Students began by investigating. Some found their way to the single-use plastic bottle, a quintessential still life object and also a symbol of one of our most urgent environmental problems. They researched how plastics are sorted, which types can be recycled and which cannot, and how little most people understand about the consumer systems they participate in daily. The students' response was to design a game that could teach plastic sorting in a way that was fun and accessible. They tested it with friends. They took it into their community. Eventually, they started thinking about what it would look like as an app, and they surveyed peers to find out how much people actually knew about ocean pollution and waste sorting. The answer confirmed everything their investigation had suggested: not much.
Below: examples of two pieces of student art from the "Still Life" unit, with rationales explaining how each piece sparks advocacy and action.
Other students went in different directions. One student designed a food waste awareness poster for the school canteen, took it to her classmates, and gathered feedback. Another traced the history of the mobile phone as a still life object and used that arc as a way of opening up a conversation about technology and mental wellness, how something so ordinary and present in every pocket has quietly reshaped how young people relate to themselves and each other. Each project was distinct. Each one emerged from a student's own curiosity about a real issue. Each one was pointed outward toward a real audience.

What shines in this unit is how clearly the students understood the purpose of what they were doing. They were not making art for a grade. They were making art that would do something or reach someone, and that orientation changed the quality of student engagement and learning entirely.

Assessment as a common thread

When a teacher centers student voice and choice in the way Sidd did with his grade 9/10 unit, the question of assessment can feel complicated. How do you evaluate equitably when students have taken different paths and produced completely different products?

Sidd's approach was elegant. He gave students a framework at the start that included stories, examples, and prompts to spark their thinking. Then he coached each student or group through their ideation and research/inquiry. And throughout the learning process, he mapped what was happening in relation to MYP criteria:

Investigation connected to Criteria A.

Developing ideas mapped to Criteria B.

The final creation connected to Criteria C.

Reflection connected to Criteria D.

The framework stayed constant even as the processes and products varied wildly.

It's a useful reminder that assessment criteria and student agency are not in tension with each other. They create the possibility of different roads leading to the same destination. The MYP framework gave Sidd a consistent lens through which to evaluate diverse work, and the students experienced it as freedom rather than constraint.
Below: Left - Some reflective prompts that Sidd's students considered during my classroom visit to explore the impacts of changeseeking and changemaking; right - Sidd reviewing some outcomes for the grade 9/10 visual art Still Life unit.

Appropriation art as advocacy

Sidd's Grade 7 unit was focused on "Appropriation Art," a topic that already carries an interesting built-in question: When artists create art because they are inspired by others, is it stealing, or is it a legitimate artistic tradition? Sidd again gave students the framework and then asked them to find their own connections between this topic and the school/local community.

One student reimagined the Mona Lisa and Van Gogh portraits with an environmental advocacy lens. In the student art, these iconic figures held recycling tubs, and the student posted these around school with a message urging community stakeholders to reduce and recycle. Her posters had messages in three languages (English, Chinese, and Korean), so that the widest possible audience in her community could be reached.

Another student created a sculpture of the Guangzhou Tower from recycled waste, a piece about civic pride and environmental responsibility, and about what it means to love a city and to want to protect it. That work was selected by AISG Director Kevin Baker to be displayed at a parent-teacher biannual meeting, and Sidd describes how the parents responded: "They were proud, not just of the artwork, but of what they were seeing in their children, such as confidence and a different way of thinking. The students had a sense of purpose that had not been there before. "

Another group used appropriation art to create anti-bullying materials for Grade 4 and 5 students, bringing older students into a mentorship relationship with younger peers through the medium of visual art.
Below: From the Appropriation Art unit, the student rendition of the Guangzhou Tower (top, with rationale), and (bottom) two of the famous art posters adapted with planet care messages.

What shifts in a teacher, shifts in a classroom

What is most compelling about Sidd's story is not just what the students did, though that is genuinely impressive for a first attempt at embedding community engagement across a visual arts programme. Rather, it's how Sidd's own perspective on his role has changed, and the deep reflexivity he has personally experienced.

"Teaching like this has changed my life, as well," he reflects. "If we, as teachers, can establish these examples in our classes, we can create a change in the new generation's minds. If they see us modelling behaviours like care for the planet, they will learn this is possible. For example, I've been intentional about reusing things in my studio, even old canvases. You can paint the canvas white and use it again; as the students observe this approach to resources, their own behaviours change."

Sidd now visits the school copy room and asks for used Post-it notes, markers with ink still in them, and leftover supplies rather than newly-opened ones. He has a device for measuring the charge left in materials such as batteries, to avoid discarding those items until it's absolutely necessary. For Sidd, it's obvious that if you are teaching students to care about consumption, you probably need care, and model that care, yourself.

He also talks about his daughter, who is 14. He and his wife try to model the same principles at home: not wasting food, not buying clothes that aren't needed, not consuming for the sake of consuming. While he began his community engagement and service learning journey with these beliefs and values, something has shifted for him this year that has intensified his commitment to planet care and environmental stewardship.

Often, the most effective community engagement teachers I meet are people for whom this work and its values are real and lived convictions, and Sidd is one of those people. When a teacher's choices reflect a meaningful relationship with the planet (not sustainability performed for a unit, but woven into how they actually move through the world), that becomes an invitation into dialogue rather than isolated instruction.

What is already in motion

Sidd is hosting an end-of-year art exhibition at AISG that will bring both the grade 9/10 and grade 7 units into a wider community space, with students presenting work that was made to spark more conversation and action. This will create additional ripples of impact as all community stakeholders interact with the visual art pieces and the convictions of the student artists.

Looking ahead to next year, Sidd wants every unit he teaches across Grade 9 and 10 to be rooted in authentic community engagement. He is planning to build five dedicated sessions into each unit for that purpose, and he is already thinking about:

how the central questions of each unit might be modified

how he can embed Triple WellBeing (care for self, others, and the planet) into those central, guiding questions

how the action that emerges in each unit might ignite and amplify what students care about

"Art has always been for something"

There is a version of visual arts education that keeps everything inside the room: technique, composition, personal expression, and grades for products that stay in the classroom space. That version of teaching and learning isn't wrong. But it is incomplete.

Art has always been one of the ways human communities make meaning together, advocate for what they value, grieve what they have lost, and imagine what might be different. When Sidd asks his students to use appropriation art to educate peers about bullying, or to use still life as a vehicle for raising awareness about ocean plastics, he is not asking them to do something foreign to the artistic tradition. He is asking them to participate in it honestly.

Watching 12- and 13-year-olds debating whether a small scrap of paper is still useful for a collage, and older students thinking through what it would take to get their game into an app store, is a reminder of what becomes possible when a teacher genuinely believes that learning is an act of engagement with the world.
Sidd has taken core and pathway courses in his year-long Service Learning and Community Engagement Specialist Program. He has also participated in group and individual coaching with me, Cathryn Berger Kaye, and Shei Ascencio. The Service Champions have had monthly cohort calls to apply their learning from the course to the AISG "Engagement for All" framework that guides curriculum design and brings the school mission and vision to life.

Sidd Bose is a part of the AIS-Guangzhou "Service Champions" team of educators. This team is enrolled in the year-long Service Learning and Community Engagement Specialist Certification Program that I facilitate with Cathryn Berger Kaye and Shei Ascencio. Because of his involvement in the Specialist Program, Sidd now plans all of his curriculum on a foundation of community engagement, service learning, and a deep sense of purpose.
When I walked into Sidd Bose's visual arts classroom at the American International School of Guangzhou this year, I found a room full of students making art rooted in activism, advocacy, and meaningful awareness of local and global issues.

Sidd is an IB DP and MYP Visual Arts Teacher at AISG, and he is one of those educators whose passion for his work is immediately apparent. This year, he has completely redesigned his Grade 9, 10, and 7 visual art classes, and he loves what is evolving for students, the school community, and wider local and global contexts.

"My goal this year was to give students agency and personalization," says Sidd. "And I'm so happy with how this has turned out. In my redesigned units, my students were not just thinking about art, but about how their learning can impact others."

The still life that wouldn't stay still

The unit that started it all was simply called "Still Life" for Grade 9 and 10 students in the first semester. Still life is one of those classic art education pillars, grounded in tradition and technique. Sidd's version of it became something considerably less conventional.

He began by asking a simple and generative question: How can still life connect to daily life? How can artistic expression raise awareness about social and environmental issues? The answer, it turned out, was that it could go in many directions, and Sidd let that happen.

Students began by investigating. Some found their way to the single-use plastic bottle, a quintessential still life object and also a symbol of one of our most urgent environmental problems. They researched how plastics are sorted, which types can be recycled and which cannot, and how little most people understand about the consumer systems they participate in daily. The students' response was to design a game that could teach plastic sorting in a way that was fun and accessible. They tested it with friends. They took it into their community. Eventually, they started thinking about what it would look like as an app, and they surveyed peers to find out how much people actually knew about ocean pollution and waste sorting. The answer confirmed everything their investigation had suggested: not much.
Below: examples of two pieces of student art from the "Still Life" unit, with rationales explaining how each piece sparks advocacy and action.
Other students went in different directions. One student designed a food waste awareness poster for the school canteen, took it to her classmates, and gathered feedback. Another traced the history of the mobile phone as a still life object and used that arc as a way of opening up a conversation about technology and mental wellness, how something so ordinary and present in every pocket has quietly reshaped how young people relate to themselves and each other. Each project was distinct. Each one emerged from a student's own curiosity about a real issue. Each one was pointed outward toward a real audience.

What shines in this unit is how clearly the students understood the purpose of what they were doing. They were not making art for a grade. They were making art that would do something or reach someone, and that orientation changed the quality of student engagement and learning entirely.

Assessment as a common thread

When a teacher centers student voice and choice in the way Sidd did with his grade 9/10 unit, the question of assessment can feel complicated. How do you evaluate equitably when students have taken different paths and produced completely different products?

Sidd's approach was elegant. He gave students a framework at the start that included stories, examples, and prompts to spark their thinking. Then he coached each student or group through their ideation and research/inquiry. And throughout the learning process, he mapped what was happening in relation to MYP criteria:

Investigation connected to Criteria A.

Developing ideas mapped to Criteria B.

The final creation connected to Criteria C.

Reflection connected to Criteria D.

The framework stayed constant even as the processes and products varied wildly.

It's a useful reminder that assessment criteria and student agency are not in tension with each other. They create the possibility of different roads leading to the same destination. The MYP framework gave Sidd a consistent lens through which to evaluate diverse work, and the students experienced it as freedom rather than constraint.
Below: Left - Some reflective prompts that Sidd's students considered during my classroom visit to explore the impacts of changeseeking and changemaking; right - Sidd reviewing some outcomes for the grade 9/10 visual art Still Life unit.

Appropriation art as advocacy

Sidd's Grade 7 unit was focused on "Appropriation Art," a topic that already carries an interesting built-in question: When artists create art because they are inspired by others, is it stealing, or is it a legitimate artistic tradition? Sidd again gave students the framework and then asked them to find their own connections between this topic and the school/local community.

One student reimagined the Mona Lisa and Van Gogh portraits with an environmental advocacy lens. In the student art, these iconic figures held recycling tubs, and the student posted these around school with a message urging community stakeholders to reduce and recycle. Her posters had messages in three languages (English, Chinese, and Korean), so that the widest possible audience in her community could be reached.

Another student created a sculpture of the Guangzhou Tower from recycled waste, a piece about civic pride and environmental responsibility, and about what it means to love a city and to want to protect it. That work was selected by AISG Director Kevin Baker to be displayed at a parent-teacher biannual meeting, and Sidd describes how the parents responded: "They were proud, not just of the artwork, but of what they were seeing in their children, such as confidence and a different way of thinking. The students had a sense of purpose that had not been there before. "

Another group used appropriation art to create anti-bullying materials for Grade 4 and 5 students, bringing older students into a mentorship relationship with younger peers through the medium of visual art.
Below: From the Appropriation Art unit, the student rendition of the Guangzhou Tower (top, with rationale), and (bottom) two of the famous art posters adapted with planet care messages.

What shifts in a teacher, shifts in a classroom

What is most compelling about Sidd's story is not just what the students did, though that is genuinely impressive for a first attempt at embedding community engagement across a visual arts programme. Rather, it's how Sidd's own perspective on his role has changed, and the deep reflexivity he has personally experienced.

"Teaching like this has changed my life, as well," he reflects. "If we, as teachers, can establish these examples in our classes, we can create a change in the new generation's minds. If they see us modelling behaviours like care for the planet, they will learn this is possible. For example, I've been intentional about reusing things in my studio, even old canvases. You can paint the canvas white and use it again; as the students observe this approach to resources, their own behaviours change."

Sidd now visits the school copy room and asks for used Post-it notes, markers with ink still in them, and leftover supplies rather than newly-opened ones. He has a device for measuring the charge left in materials such as batteries, to avoid discarding those items until it's absolutely necessary. For Sidd, it's obvious that if you are teaching students to care about consumption, you probably need care, and model that care, yourself.

He also talks about his daughter, who is 14. He and his wife try to model the same principles at home: not wasting food, not buying clothes that aren't needed, not consuming for the sake of consuming. While he began his community engagement and service learning journey with these beliefs and values, something has shifted for him this year that has intensified his commitment to planet care and environmental stewardship.

Often, the most effective community engagement teachers I meet are people for whom this work and its values are real and lived convictions, and Sidd is one of those people. When a teacher's choices reflect a meaningful relationship with the planet (not sustainability performed for a unit, but woven into how they actually move through the world), that becomes an invitation into dialogue rather than isolated instruction.

What is already in motion

Sidd is hosting an end-of-year art exhibition at AISG that will bring both the grade 9/10 and grade 7 units into a wider community space, with students presenting work that was made to spark more conversation and action. This will create additional ripples of impact as all community stakeholders interact with the visual art pieces and the convictions of the student artists.

Looking ahead to next year, Sidd wants every unit he teaches across Grade 9 and 10 to be rooted in authentic community engagement. He is planning to build five dedicated sessions into each unit for that purpose, and he is already thinking about:

how the central questions of each unit might be modified

how he can embed Triple WellBeing (care for self, others, and the planet) into those central, guiding questions

how the action that emerges in each unit might ignite and amplify what students care about

"Art has always been for something"

There is a version of visual arts education that keeps everything inside the room: technique, composition, personal expression, and grades for products that stay in the classroom space. That version of teaching and learning isn't wrong. But it is incomplete.

Art has always been one of the ways human communities make meaning together, advocate for what they value, grieve what they have lost, and imagine what might be different. When Sidd asks his students to use appropriation art to educate peers about bullying, or to use still life as a vehicle for raising awareness about ocean plastics, he is not asking them to do something foreign to the artistic tradition. He is asking them to participate in it honestly.

Watching 12- and 13-year-olds debating whether a small scrap of paper is still useful for a collage, and older students thinking through what it would take to get their game into an app store, is a reminder of what becomes possible when a teacher genuinely believes that learning is an act of engagement with the world.
Sidd has taken core and pathway courses in his year-long Service Learning and Community Engagement Specialist Program. He has also participated in group and individual coaching with me, Cathryn Berger Kaye, and Shei Ascencio. The Service Champions have had monthly cohort calls to apply their learning from the course to the AISG "Engagement for All" framework that guides curriculum design and brings the school mission and vision to life.

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The power of visual art for advocacy and reflexivity - LeeAnne Lavender:Storyteller

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MYP and DP visual art teacher Sidd Bose is infusing units with inquiry, synthesis, and action that is driven by care for local and global issues and contexts. The result: deep engagement and learning, and positive, purposeful impacts for learners, communities, and the planet.

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High School Media Class - students make documentary about non-teaching staff to build community

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High School Media Class - students make documentary about non-teaching staff to build community

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Building Bespoke Furniture with a Computer Partner (grade 8)

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Building Bespoke Furniture with a Computer Partner (grade 8)

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AISA | Association of International Schools in Africa

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Bespoke Furniture: Building connections with Village Pilote — AISA | Association of International Schools in Africa

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Grade 8 students at the International School of Dakar (ISD) recently partnered with Village Pilote, an NGO dedicated to rehabilitating street children in Dakar, as part of a service learning opportunity that blended both curricular and community-based learning

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Regenerative Education - how planet care is vital in all classrooms and school programs

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Regenerative Education - how planet care is vital in all classrooms and school programs

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Honouring our reciprocal relationship with nature — LeeAnne Lavender:Storyteller

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Nature educator Kenny Peavy has been doing a lot of thought and design work around regenerative education and what it might look like if we created a foundation for self, others, and nature in our school systems and approaches. In this post, he shares his vision, as well as practical ideas for how t

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Business Computing Students use Deep Listening to Spark Action

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Business Computing Students use Deep Listening to Spark Action

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Deep listening to school custodians shifts mindsets and actions — LeeAnne Lavender:Storyteller

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High school students at the American School in Taichung used deep listening and empathy interviews as a basis to take action in their Business Computing class. This experience led to community building, digital storytelling, and advocacy for shifts in mindsets and behaviours.

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Grade 8: Exploring Identity and Building Community through Storytelling with Non-Teaching Staff

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Grade 8: Exploring Identity and Building Community through Storytelling with Non-Teaching Staff

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When Stories Build Bridges: Identity and Belonging through Community Engagement — LeeAnne Lavender:Storyteller

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At the American International School of Guangzhou, two 8th-grade Language and Literature teachers redesigned a unit rooted in a core text using community engagement and storytelling strategies to connect students, staff members, and the entire school community.

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Grade 8 Dystopian Fiction Unit & Digital Citizenship

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Grade 8 Dystopian Fiction Unit & Digital Citizenship

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Dystopian Fiction Meets Digital Reality for 8th Graders — LeeAnne Lavender:Storyteller

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A Grade 8 English team recently completed their first iteration of a redesigned dystopian fiction unit, one that moved beyond traditional literary analysis to help students recognize the dystopian elements already present in their own digital lives. What has emerged is a powerful example of a curric

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Re-designing a grade 2 unit with belonging and sustainability in mind

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Re-designing a grade 2 unit with belonging and sustainability in mind

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When the Year 3 (grade 2) teaching team at Green Oasis School in Shenzhen, China, sat down to plan their second unit of the year, they knew they wanted to create something meaningful about their city. What they didn't anticipate was how a shift in framing would transform not just the unit itself, but their students' sense of agency, empathy, and connection to place.

The Challenge: Moving Beyond The Surface

Like many international schools teaching about their host city, the initial unit plan focused on Shenzhen's features: its skyline, its history as a fishing village turned innovation hub, its landmarks and geography. The learning outcomes were clear and appropriate for Grade 2 students: understanding human and physical features, demonstrating spatial awareness, and communicating about their city.

But something felt incomplete.

The team wondered: How do we help students see Shenzhen not just as a place they learn about, but as a place that shapes who they are, and that they have a responsibility to care for?

The Shift: A Question That Changed Everything

Working with community engagement and storytelling consultant LeeAnne Lavender, the team began to reimagine the unit through three interconnected lenses: belonging, identity, and planet care. These became the heart of the redesigned unit.

The breakthrough came with a single guiding question that would anchor the entire nine weeks: "How do we belong to the places that shape us, and how can we care for them in return?"

This question did something powerful: it centred the student experience ("How do we belong") while honouring reciprocity (the idea that places give to us and we have responsibility back). It was regenerative thinking made accessible for seven- and eight-year-olds.

The Framework: Head, Heart, Hands

To structure the redesigned unit, the team embraced a Head, Heart, Hands approach that wove through every week:

HEAD (Knowledge): What students need to understand about Shenzhen, their community, and sustainability

HEART (Values): How students connect emotionally to belonging, identity, and care

HANDS (Action): How students take meaningful action in their community

This framework ensured the unit wasn't just about accumulating knowledge, but about transformation. You can see the ideation process in the screenshot below; these were ideas the team designed with me during our initial coaching call.

What Changed in Practice

The redesign maintained the solid geography content of the unit but embedded it within community-engaged learning experiences:

Instead of just labelling features on a map, students went on neighbourhood walks to evaluate assets and needs connected to belonging, identity, and planet care. They weren't tourists observing, but community members investigating.

Students conducted deep listening interviews with school ayis who clean the classrooms and other areas of the school, asking about their experiences of belonging and community. They prepared thoughtful questions in advance and practised synthesis of what they learned. These conversations were an integral part of a genuine investigation into diverse perspectives within their school community.

As a result of these interviews, authentic belonging has been fostered. One teacher on the Year 3 team, Jordan Tasker, says: "The ayi who cleans my classroom says hello to me a lot more now, and when she sees students from the class, she's excited. Our relationship with her has shifted because of the interviews."

Year 3 team leader Hannah Sheridan agrees: "Yes, the ayis were valued and honoured by the interviews the students did, and it was such a good thing to bring the school community closer together."

Perhaps most significantly, students conducted formal observations and research around food waste in the school canteen. They collected data, analyzed patterns, researched root causes, and began to advocate for shifts in awareness and behaviour.

Below: photos from various class periods and experiences where students investigated Shenzhen through active inquiry and research.

The Impact: What the Team Discovered

When the Year 3 team reflected on the unit in January, their observations revealed transformation at multiple levels:

Conducting interviews with the school ayis and creating Chatterpix videos about Shenzhen buildings were experiences that students really leaned into. The team noted "increased engagement and learning" because students weren't performing for the teacher; they were investigating questions and issues that mattered to them.

"The students really enjoyed having more autonomy in this unit," says Hannah. "They were all working toward the same objective, but got there in so many different ways, and I think that was powerful."

"For the interviews with ayis, my students came up with a ton of questions, and I have never seen them that enthusiastic about wanting to learn more," adds Year 3 teacher Edward Bell. "The interviews allowed the students to care, and this really led them to think about caring for the community, and it was so great to see that."

Edward's students were also very engaged with using the Chatterpix app to share stories of the Shenzhen buildings they researched. "They enjoyed Chatterpix so much," he smiles. "They had the freedom to add stickers and other elements, and the app is so intuitive that they could use it easily. They took their creative expression in directions I couldn't have imagined, and it was wonderful to see this creativity."

One team member reflected that the unit was "an ongoing process of discovery and evolution" for both the students and the teachers, too. The guiding question about belonging helped anchor the work, though the team recognized they would like to explore the "belonging" aspect even more deeply in future iterations.

The team identified that students needed more time for their "action-oriented sustainability projects." Time can often seem like a scarce resource as we engage in curricular units, and in this case, it was evident that students had so much they wanted to do that the original timeline couldn't contain it all. When students have genuine agency, they push beyond the boundaries we set, and the Year 3 team would like to carve out more time for this unit next year so they can honour the action and sustainability components of the plan in more meaningful ways.

By weaving English (persuasive and informational writing), social studies (geography and sustainability), and PSHE (wellbeing and relationships) around the central question of belonging and care, the team created a genuinely integrated unit rather than parallel subjects sharing a theme.

This became very clear in the summative assessment for the unit, which involved a number of modes that students could use to demonstrate their learning. Year 3 teacher Amanda McGain says, "I think it was powerful that the students realized they could show their learning in a variety of ways, not just in writing."

"Many of our other units are very test-based in terms of summative assessment, and not everyone does well with this type of task, so I think the fact that students could express themselves in different ways with this unit was really positive," adds Edward.

Teachers assessed the students' Chatterpix videos, their interviews with ayis (through recordings of each interview), and leaflets created by students about Shenzhen as three summative components of the unit. They also shared the Chatterpix videos and leaflets on Toddle so parents and community members could share in the learning process.

As a final reflection in this unit, the teachers had students participate in a discussion about the unit's central question at the very end of the learning cycle. Hannah says they might like to ask students to do a deeper reflection on the central question in future versions of this unit, but that this year, the conversations were a good way for students to pause and consolidate learning before the Christmas break.
Below: some Chatterpix examples of student-created videos about landmark buildings in Shenzhen. The festive decorations in the videos reflect the season in which the videos were created, and how excited the students were about their upcoming Christmas holiday. :)

Honest Reflections: What They'd Adjust

The team celebrates what went well with this unit redesign and has also identified concrete areas for growth. Next year they're aiming for:

Better integration of the field trip experience to Xili Eco Park into the overall arc of learning

More time for student-driven action projects

Starting the initial planning meetings earlier to have more preparation time

Going deeper with the "belonging" lens, which sometimes got overshadowed by the action focus

These reflections demonstrate exactly the kind of iterative, reflective practice that leads to continuous improvement. The team isn't treating this as a "finished" unit to be repeated but as a living framework to be refined.
Below: photos from the field trip to Xili Eco Park in Shenzhen, which gave students a chance to connect to a local natural environment.

Looking Forward: Applying the Learning

Perhaps the most exciting outcome is what comes next. The team shared that they're already planning to apply the Head, Heart, Hands framework and principles of authentic community engagement to their upcoming Bronze Age/Iron Age and Tremors units. They're asking: How do we integrate global citizenship principles and more inquiry-driven, project-based learning into these units, too?

This is how sustainable change and culture shifts happen in schools: through teachers internalizing new approaches, prototyping new strategies and experiences, reflecting in a meaningful way, and applying what they've learned across the curriculum.

Key Takeaways for Curriculum Designers

This redesign offers valuable lessons for any team reimagining place-based learning:
1. A Powerful Question Can Anchor Everything
The guiding question ("How do we belong to the places that shape us, and how can we care for them in return?") gave coherence to nine weeks of diverse learning experiences. The question supported students (and teachers) in understanding why they were doing what they were doing.
2. Integration Requires Intention
This wasn't a unit where geography happened on Tuesdays and writing happened on Thursdays. Knowledge, values, and action were woven through every learning experience in an interdisciplinary way. Students wrote because they had something meaningful to communicate. They learned geography through inquiry and investigation.
3. Community Engagement Isn't an Add-On
The interviews with ayis, the canteen observations, the neighbourhood walks, and the field trip: these experiences allowed students to engage with real community members, issues and places, which created reciprocal and relational learning.
4. Action Should Be Student-Driven and Authentic
Awareness about school food waste emerged from student research and observation. This is at the heart of authentic global citizenship and community engagement: investigating root causes and taking informed action.
5. Reflection Is Essential for Growth
When the team met with LeeAnne on a Zoom call in January to reflect on the unit, the team revealed a group commitment to continuous improvement. They celebrated what worked and identified what to adjust. They valued the coaching process not because it gave them a perfect unit, but because it gave them new lenses to apply to future work.

What the Year 3 team at GOS discovered is that connection to place doesn't happen through learning facts or approaching a place like a tourist. It happens through:

Asking questions that matter

Listening deeply to diverse voices

Investigating root causes, not just symptoms

Taking action that's informed by research and relationship

Reflecting on how place shapes identity

In reimagining their Shenzhen unit, this team didn't just teach students about a city. They helped seven- and eight-year-olds understand themselves as community members with agency, as listeners with empathy, and as change-makers with responsibility.

Below: pages from three Shenzhen brochures created by students to synthesize learning about the city where they live, and their understanding of how they can belong to this urban community.

This story is based on authentic curriculum redesign work conducted with the Year 3 team at Green Oasis School in Shenzhen, China, through its partnership with me (LeeAnne!) as a curriculum consultant and coach. The unit "Places That Shape Us: Belonging, Identity, and Care in Shenzhen" was implemented in the autumn of 2025, with reflection and iteration continuing into 2026.

When the Year 3 (grade 2) teaching team at Green Oasis School in Shenzhen, China, sat down to plan their second unit of the year, they knew they wanted to create something meaningful about their city. What they didn't anticipate was how a shift in framing would transform not just the unit itself, but their students' sense of agency, empathy, and connection to place.

The Challenge: Moving Beyond The Surface

Like many international schools teaching about their host city, the initial unit plan focused on Shenzhen's features: its skyline, its history as a fishing village turned innovation hub, its landmarks and geography. The learning outcomes were clear and appropriate for Grade 2 students: understanding human and physical features, demonstrating spatial awareness, and communicating about their city.

But something felt incomplete.

The team wondered: How do we help students see Shenzhen not just as a place they learn about, but as a place that shapes who they are, and that they have a responsibility to care for?

The Shift: A Question That Changed Everything

Working with community engagement and storytelling consultant LeeAnne Lavender, the team began to reimagine the unit through three interconnected lenses: belonging, identity, and planet care. These became the heart of the redesigned unit.

The breakthrough came with a single guiding question that would anchor the entire nine weeks: "How do we belong to the places that shape us, and how can we care for them in return?"

This question did something powerful: it centred the student experience ("How do we belong") while honouring reciprocity (the idea that places give to us and we have responsibility back). It was regenerative thinking made accessible for seven- and eight-year-olds.

The Framework: Head, Heart, Hands

To structure the redesigned unit, the team embraced a Head, Heart, Hands approach that wove through every week:

HEAD (Knowledge): What students need to understand about Shenzhen, their community, and sustainability

HEART (Values): How students connect emotionally to belonging, identity, and care

HANDS (Action): How students take meaningful action in their community

This framework ensured the unit wasn't just about accumulating knowledge, but about transformation. You can see the ideation process in the screenshot below; these were ideas the team designed with me during our initial coaching call.

What Changed in Practice

The redesign maintained the solid geography content of the unit but embedded it within community-engaged learning experiences:

Instead of just labelling features on a map, students went on neighbourhood walks to evaluate assets and needs connected to belonging, identity, and planet care. They weren't tourists observing, but community members investigating.

Students conducted deep listening interviews with school ayis who clean the classrooms and other areas of the school, asking about their experiences of belonging and community. They prepared thoughtful questions in advance and practised synthesis of what they learned. These conversations were an integral part of a genuine investigation into diverse perspectives within their school community.

As a result of these interviews, authentic belonging has been fostered. One teacher on the Year 3 team, Jordan Tasker, says: "The ayi who cleans my classroom says hello to me a lot more now, and when she sees students from the class, she's excited. Our relationship with her has shifted because of the interviews."

Year 3 team leader Hannah Sheridan agrees: "Yes, the ayis were valued and honoured by the interviews the students did, and it was such a good thing to bring the school community closer together."

Perhaps most significantly, students conducted formal observations and research around food waste in the school canteen. They collected data, analyzed patterns, researched root causes, and began to advocate for shifts in awareness and behaviour.

Below: photos from various class periods and experiences where students investigated Shenzhen through active inquiry and research.

The Impact: What the Team Discovered

When the Year 3 team reflected on the unit in January, their observations revealed transformation at multiple levels:

Conducting interviews with the school ayis and creating Chatterpix videos about Shenzhen buildings were experiences that students really leaned into. The team noted "increased engagement and learning" because students weren't performing for the teacher; they were investigating questions and issues that mattered to them.

"The students really enjoyed having more autonomy in this unit," says Hannah. "They were all working toward the same objective, but got there in so many different ways, and I think that was powerful."

"For the interviews with ayis, my students came up with a ton of questions, and I have never seen them that enthusiastic about wanting to learn more," adds Year 3 teacher Edward Bell. "The interviews allowed the students to care, and this really led them to think about caring for the community, and it was so great to see that."

Edward's students were also very engaged with using the Chatterpix app to share stories of the Shenzhen buildings they researched. "They enjoyed Chatterpix so much," he smiles. "They had the freedom to add stickers and other elements, and the app is so intuitive that they could use it easily. They took their creative expression in directions I couldn't have imagined, and it was wonderful to see this creativity."

One team member reflected that the unit was "an ongoing process of discovery and evolution" for both the students and the teachers, too. The guiding question about belonging helped anchor the work, though the team recognized they would like to explore the "belonging" aspect even more deeply in future iterations.

The team identified that students needed more time for their "action-oriented sustainability projects." Time can often seem like a scarce resource as we engage in curricular units, and in this case, it was evident that students had so much they wanted to do that the original timeline couldn't contain it all. When students have genuine agency, they push beyond the boundaries we set, and the Year 3 team would like to carve out more time for this unit next year so they can honour the action and sustainability components of the plan in more meaningful ways.

By weaving English (persuasive and informational writing), social studies (geography and sustainability), and PSHE (wellbeing and relationships) around the central question of belonging and care, the team created a genuinely integrated unit rather than parallel subjects sharing a theme.

This became very clear in the summative assessment for the unit, which involved a number of modes that students could use to demonstrate their learning. Year 3 teacher Amanda McGain says, "I think it was powerful that the students realized they could show their learning in a variety of ways, not just in writing."

"Many of our other units are very test-based in terms of summative assessment, and not everyone does well with this type of task, so I think the fact that students could express themselves in different ways with this unit was really positive," adds Edward.

Teachers assessed the students' Chatterpix videos, their interviews with ayis (through recordings of each interview), and leaflets created by students about Shenzhen as three summative components of the unit. They also shared the Chatterpix videos and leaflets on Toddle so parents and community members could share in the learning process.

As a final reflection in this unit, the teachers had students participate in a discussion about the unit's central question at the very end of the learning cycle. Hannah says they might like to ask students to do a deeper reflection on the central question in future versions of this unit, but that this year, the conversations were a good way for students to pause and consolidate learning before the Christmas break.
Below: some Chatterpix examples of student-created videos about landmark buildings in Shenzhen. The festive decorations in the videos reflect the season in which the videos were created, and how excited the students were about their upcoming Christmas holiday. :)

Honest Reflections: What They'd Adjust

The team celebrates what went well with this unit redesign and has also identified concrete areas for growth. Next year they're aiming for:

Better integration of the field trip experience to Xili Eco Park into the overall arc of learning

More time for student-driven action projects

Starting the initial planning meetings earlier to have more preparation time

Going deeper with the "belonging" lens, which sometimes got overshadowed by the action focus

These reflections demonstrate exactly the kind of iterative, reflective practice that leads to continuous improvement. The team isn't treating this as a "finished" unit to be repeated but as a living framework to be refined.
Below: photos from the field trip to Xili Eco Park in Shenzhen, which gave students a chance to connect to a local natural environment.

Looking Forward: Applying the Learning

Perhaps the most exciting outcome is what comes next. The team shared that they're already planning to apply the Head, Heart, Hands framework and principles of authentic community engagement to their upcoming Bronze Age/Iron Age and Tremors units. They're asking: How do we integrate global citizenship principles and more inquiry-driven, project-based learning into these units, too?

This is how sustainable change and culture shifts happen in schools: through teachers internalizing new approaches, prototyping new strategies and experiences, reflecting in a meaningful way, and applying what they've learned across the curriculum.

Key Takeaways for Curriculum Designers

This redesign offers valuable lessons for any team reimagining place-based learning:
1. A Powerful Question Can Anchor Everything
The guiding question ("How do we belong to the places that shape us, and how can we care for them in return?") gave coherence to nine weeks of diverse learning experiences. The question supported students (and teachers) in understanding why they were doing what they were doing.
2. Integration Requires Intention
This wasn't a unit where geography happened on Tuesdays and writing happened on Thursdays. Knowledge, values, and action were woven through every learning experience in an interdisciplinary way. Students wrote because they had something meaningful to communicate. They learned geography through inquiry and investigation.
3. Community Engagement Isn't an Add-On
The interviews with ayis, the canteen observations, the neighbourhood walks, and the field trip: these experiences allowed students to engage with real community members, issues and places, which created reciprocal and relational learning.
4. Action Should Be Student-Driven and Authentic
Awareness about school food waste emerged from student research and observation. This is at the heart of authentic global citizenship and community engagement: investigating root causes and taking informed action.
5. Reflection Is Essential for Growth
When the team met with LeeAnne on a Zoom call in January to reflect on the unit, the team revealed a group commitment to continuous improvement. They celebrated what worked and identified what to adjust. They valued the coaching process not because it gave them a perfect unit, but because it gave them new lenses to apply to future work.

What the Year 3 team at GOS discovered is that connection to place doesn't happen through learning facts or approaching a place like a tourist. It happens through:

Asking questions that matter

Listening deeply to diverse voices

Investigating root causes, not just symptoms

Taking action that's informed by research and relationship

Reflecting on how place shapes identity

In reimagining their Shenzhen unit, this team didn't just teach students about a city. They helped seven- and eight-year-olds understand themselves as community members with agency, as listeners with empathy, and as change-makers with responsibility.

Below: pages from three Shenzhen brochures created by students to synthesize learning about the city where they live, and their understanding of how they can belong to this urban community.

This story is based on authentic curriculum redesign work conducted with the Year 3 team at Green Oasis School in Shenzhen, China, through its partnership with me (LeeAnne!) as a curriculum consultant and coach. The unit "Places That Shape Us: Belonging, Identity, and Care in Shenzhen" was implemented in the autumn of 2025, with reflection and iteration continuing into 2026.

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Authentic Belonging and Community-Building for grade 2 students - LeeAnne Lavender:Storyteller

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When the Year 3 (grade 2) teaching team at Green Oasis School in Shenzhen sat down to plan their second unit of the year, they knew they wanted to create something meaningful about their city.

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A grade 5 teacher reflects on meaningful PD and its lasting impact on community engagement practices

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A grade 5 teacher reflects on meaningful PD and its lasting impact on community engagement practices

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When the Right PL Partners Spark Lasting Change — LeeAnne Lavender:Storyteller

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At ACS Abu Dhabi, educator Amy Mulvihill shows how aligned professional development partnerships create lasting impact. Working with Aaron Moniz (service learning) and LeeAnne Lavender (storytelling), she gained transferable tools like the sustainability compass that frame learning across multiple u

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A story pop-up event to showcase community engagement

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A story pop-up event to showcase community engagement

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Making Learning & Reflection Visible with a Story Pop-Up Event — LeeAnne Lavender:Storyteller

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Drawing inspiration from projects like Humans of New York and the Empathy Museum , a recent story pop-up event at Shanghai Community International School featured student stories of belonging, community, and service learning. Paired with the school’s busy annual Winter Carnival, these stories mad

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Joy through music and dancing: shifting culture with a daily dance party at St. Ebbe's

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Joy through music and dancing: shifting culture with a daily dance party at St. Ebbe's

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St. Ebbe's Primary School - Music & Joy.mp4

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How a "curriculum of hope" at St. Ebbe's Primary School centers learning in triple wellbeing (care for self, others, and the planet)

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How a "curriculum of hope" at St. Ebbe's Primary School centers learning in triple wellbeing (care for self, others, and the planet)

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How a “curriculum of hope” drives authentic inquiry and global citizenship — LeeAnne Lavender:Storyteller

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St. Ebbe’s Primary School in Oxford, UK, is committed to its innovative “curriculum of hope” that is rooted in a series of impactful inquiry questions for each grade level, as well as a focus on play, student agency and identity, and a love of nature. The stories of changeseeking, changemaking and d

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An all-school community partnership rooted in local history and identity (in relation to place and time)

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An all-school community partnership rooted in local history and identity (in relation to place and time)

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Building Bridges Through History with a Reciprocal Partnership — LeeAnne Lavender:Storyteller

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What started as a simple idea at Shanghai Community International School (bringing learning out of the classroom and into the community), has evolved into a robust, interdisciplinary partnership that exemplifies what reciprocal community engagement can look like.

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A reciprocal community partnership rooted in composting and care for the planet

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A reciprocal community partnership rooted in composting and care for the planet

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Seeds of Change through Bokashi Composting & a Reciprocal Partnership — LeeAnne Lavender:Storyteller

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Bokashi composting serves as a foundation for reciprocal community partnerships at the American International School of Lusaka in Zambia, with a whole lot of additional benefits for the community and nature, too!

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Storytelling and Film-making as Authentic Community Engagement

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Storytelling and Film-making as Authentic Community Engagement

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A high school student from IS-Tanganyika reflects on the power of making a documentary about her community for Docathon.

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MYP Interdisciplinary Units & meaningful community engagement

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MYP Interdisciplinary Units & meaningful community engagement

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MYP IDUs as Vehicles for Authentic Community Engagement — LeeAnne Lavender:Storyteller

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“The most impactful experience for us this year is seeing what we’ve perceived as impossible for the past year become possible before our very eyes,” says Temi Ray-Odekeye (MYP Coordinator at ARIS). “Before, we couldn’t even connect service learning to our disciplinary units, and now

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Storytelling and a Community Celebration to fuel CAS and all-school community engagement

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Storytelling and a Community Celebration to fuel CAS and all-school community engagement

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Shifting the narrative with an inaugural community engagement celebration — LeeAnne Lavender:Storyteller

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When the DP Creativity, Activity, and Service Coordinator and MYP Coordinator at Al-Rayan International School joined forces last year to create the school’s first service and community engagement celebration, a lot of amazing things happened.

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A Middle School Global Citizenship Journey at the Western Academy of Beijing

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A Middle School Global Citizenship Journey at the Western Academy of Beijing

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Building a cohesive program, grade level community partners and themes, and integrating GC into the curriculum

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Cultivating Active Global Citizens: A Middle School Journey — LeeAnne Lavender:Storyteller

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The Global Citizenship team at WAB is designing a multi-layered approach to evolve their all-school program in impactful ways. In this post, middle school assistant principal Huiman Cheng shares strategies for approaching global citizenship curriculum design and community partnerships in sustainable

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Story Circles 2.0 & Deep Community Impact

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Story Circles 2.0 & Deep Community Impact

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Grade 9 Lang/Lit at ICS-Addis & how story circles is impacting learners, leaders, parents, local staff, and community partners

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Story Circles 2.0: Sustainability Through Curriculum Integration — LeeAnne Lavender:Storyteller

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For the second year in a row, grade 9 Language & Literature students at ICS-Addis have engaged in deep listening and story exchanges with community members. This story highlights the sustainability of embedding service learning into the curriculum, as well as the growing impacts of deep list

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Critical Global Citizenship: a HS course at IS-Kigali

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Critical Global Citizenship: a HS course at IS-Kigali

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A thoughtful reflection by educator Nathan Haines about the nature of the course and some big ideas and questions that guide learners.

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A “Yes, and…” Response to Ms. Hughes’ Article in The International Educator — PRAXIS Education

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Socratic discussions are a key pedagogical tool in the Critical Global Citizenship course at the International School of Kigali (ISKR). Socratic discussions involve participants challenging each other with questions about an object of knowledge, such as a text; they also involve offering alternative

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An excellent documentary about some impactful work in the NESA region rooted in sustainability, community engagement, and active global citizenship.

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Near East South Asia Council of Overseas Schools

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AISA Community Engagement and Learning Self-Assessment Tool

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AISA Community Engagement and Learning Self-Assessment Tool

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Self-Assessment Tools for Service Learning (individual and program-wide): NYLC

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Self-Assessment Tools for Service Learning (individual and program-wide): NYLC

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Why Quality Service Learning Matters - National Youth Leadership Council

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Why Quality Service Learning Matters - National Youth Leadership Council

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The Hidden Costs of Poor Service-Learning Experiences: Why Quality Matters – National Youth Leadership Council

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Gr 10 Trashion Fashion Unit - learning and action

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Gr 10 Trashion Fashion Unit - learning and action

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AISA | Association of International Schools in Africa

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From Trash to Transformation — AISA | Association of International Schools in Africa

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From Trash to Transformation: How Students Turned a Fashion Unit Into Community Action

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The full story of a KG "Living Things" unit including inquiry, action, and advocacy

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The full story of a KG "Living Things" unit including inquiry, action, and advocacy

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Nurturing Young Advocates: How KG1 Students Champion Living Things — LeeAnne Lavender:Storyteller

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An inspiring look inside the American Community School (ACS) of Abu Dhabi’s KG1 program, where the youngest learners are developing empathy, knowledge, and advocacy skills through deep exploration of the natural world.

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Books, printables, videos and more for kids (and their grownups) to get unstuck with 5 powerful questions.

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Meaningful Reflection for Experiential Service Learning in MS & HS

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Meaningful Reflection for Experiential Service Learning in MS & HS

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Experiential learning and the power of meaningful reflection — LeeAnne Lavender:Storyteller

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When it comes to experiential learning and trips, purposeful reflection can change a trip from being a one-off experience in a vacuum to being a deeply relevant and meaningful chapter in a student’s learning journey.

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Belonging and community engagement through visual art in the PYP

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Belonging and community engagement through visual art in the PYP

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Cultivating Belonging & Action Through Visual Arts — LeeAnne Lavender:Storyteller

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At the International School of Uganda (ISU), visual arts teacher Jill Pribyl is creating transformative learning experiences that amplify belonging, wellbeing, meaningful connections and community engagement.

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SCIS: Roots & Wings as a theme to guide SL & CE

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SCIS: Roots & Wings as a theme to guide SL & CE

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Rooted in a community partnership with the Community Centre of Shanghai and also in partnerships with SCIS parents, Roots & Wings is an approach to all-school community engagement (CE) and service learning (SL).

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"The theme came directly from students," Haakon shares. "They said, 'Well-being and thriving are too big-let's make it about our roots and our wings.' That simple shift made the concept accessible for everyone, even our youngest learners."

These student insights, collected through advisory-led classroom visits, now guide future planning. "Teachers are eager to participate when they discover the student voice that's behind the ideas," Haakon says with a smile.
Seeking Collaborators to Support the Vision
While the initiative is grounded in the SCIS community, strategic partnerships are helping it take flight. A particularly resonant collaboration has been with Ivy Yan of Inspire Citizens.

"Ivy brings such depth to the experiential side of this work," says Haakon. "Her eco-connective workshops allowed students and parents to reflect, move, and be in nature together. She's helped bring the metaphor of Roots and Wings to life-literally and figuratively-in very stage-appropriate ways as she facilitates the range from early learners to upper school."

Ivy's work with SCIS has included wellness-focused advisory presentations and nature-based experiences designed to nurture intergenerational reflection. Whether guiding students in a mirror walk or helping families tune into the sounds of the natural world, her contributions have modelled what holistic, grounded service can look like.

"Working with Ivy and Inspire Citizens wasn't about a traditional PD model," Haakon reflects. "It was a real partnership-co-planned, co-facilitated, and deeply responsive to our context. That's the model I hope more schools explore."
Looking Ahead: Small Steps, Lasting Culture
Roots and Wings is still in its early stages. Haakon describes this year's activities as a "test balloon," a pilot of sorts, meant to explore what's possible when community, creativity, and well-being come together.

"This isn't a one-off series-it's a culture we're building," he says. "It's already shown how powerful small, intentional steps can be."

In the coming years, Haakon envisions a growing network of community-based experiences, tied to curriculum and designed with input from students and families alike. From "tasting time" menus inspired by student submissions to interdisciplinary explorations of well-being and strength, the journey continues.

And as it unfolds, Roots and Wings remains exactly what it was always meant to be: a space to grow together, grounded in who we are and where we might go next.
This short video offers us some insight into the day's experiences, hosted Haakon Gould, SCIS's Service Learning Coach and DP-CAS Coordinator and Ivy Yan, an Experiential Learning Facilitator with Inspire Citizens (video supplied):

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Roots and Wings at SCIS is a student-led, community-driven initiative reimagining service learning through well-being, creativity, and nature-based experiences. With support from Inspire Citizens, the program builds connection and purposeful action across all ages, even including the wider parent co

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Grade 5 students use Animoto for summative assessments

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Grade 5 students use Animoto for summative assessments

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Annemarie Hodge at The American International School of Muscat (TAISM) had her 5th graders research items that were traded on the Silk Road as part of a social studies investigation. The students synthesized their research and conveyed their learning via Animoto video templates like this one about the history of jade!

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Animoto makes video creation easy! Animoto’s video maker turns your photos and video clips into professional videos in minutes. Fast and shockingly simple!

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ISF Hong Kong students have created the journal Echo to express themselves through words and photos, and to promote a culture of diversity, storytelling, and care. This is a link to one edition. :)

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Amazingly Simple Graphic Design Software - Canva

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Advocacy through art, drama, and digital storytelling

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Grade 8 MYP IDU and the power of digital storytelling 

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Grade 8 MYP IDU and the power of digital storytelling 

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In a year 9 MYP IDU at Al-Rayan International School in Ghana, a student visited a traditional community and learned about the culture and legacy of making shea butter. She made this video to document what she learned and to share with others in her community to raise awareness of the importance of shea butter production in relation to culture, women's empowerment and social entrepreneurship.

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ARIS Yr 9 IDU Hamamat Village Shea Butter.mp4

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A Little More - Digital Storytelling & Advocacy with Grade 3 Students

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A Little More - Digital Storytelling & Advocacy with Grade 3 Students

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Thanks to Shane Watson for the video that his grade 3 students created for a Remembrance Day assembly in Winnipeg, Canada.

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Grade 7 "Becoming a Changemaker" unit culminates in Changemaker Fair

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Grade 7 "Becoming a Changemaker" unit culminates in Changemaker Fair

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Building changemakers and changeseekers through a coaching partnership — LeeAnne Lavender:Storyteller

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At the International School of Kenya (ISK), middle school ELL educator Susan Cizek has redefined what it means for her students to be “changemakers,” thanks to a transformative coaching partnership. This collaboration led to a dynamic reimagining of Susan’s “Becoming a Changemaker” unit, adding real

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Grade 4 "Sharing the Planet" unit exemplifies transformative service learning

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Grade 4 "Sharing the Planet" unit exemplifies transformative service learning

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Grade 4 students become advocates for wildlife conservation — LeeAnne Lavender:Storyteller

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A grade 4 unit called “Sharing the Planet” exemplifies many transformative aspects of service learning, including interviews with primary sources for dynamic research, creating digital stories for advocacy, and working with community partners.

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A site that curates stories about positive, purposeful change in communities worldwide.

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Restore Commons - Ideas compelling enough and citizens inventive enough to restore the common good

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Ideas compelling enough, and citizens inventive enough, to restore the common good.

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The Triple WelllBeing ® curriculum sparks a desire to make a difference, guiding students towards shaping their futures with a sense of purpose, compassion and connection to what truly matters in life.

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Triple WellBeing® Curriculum - ThoughtBox Education

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Grow holistic thinkers who grasp life's essence beyond mere knowledge. They learn not only about the world but also how to navigate it, honing the art of living well.

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The Snapshots Project (a collection of service learning stories curated by Nate Samuelson at Korea International School)

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The Snapshots Project (a collection of service learning stories curated by Nate Samuelson at Korea International School)

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This service learning experience involved students interviewing local staff members and sharing their information in a curated exhibit around campus. It involved deep listening, intercultural understanding, and building community, and impacted the learners and community members in significant ways.

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Grade 7 Water & Sanitation (Geo and Science)

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Grade 7 Water & Sanitation (Geo and Science)

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Check out how grade 7 learned about the importance of good sanitation and what an effective community partnership looks like through their work with the Safe Water Garden project.

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How to plan an end-of-year service celebration

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How to plan an end-of-year service celebration

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As you approach the last quarter of the year, I'd love to share some ideas about how to plan a service celebration to showcase what's happening at your school and build increased momentum and a common vision for service learning in your community.

When I was the service learning coordinator at Concordia International School Shanghai, I started the tradition of an end-of-semester service celebration in May each year, and it was a wonderful way to bring members of our PreK-12 community together to share and honour service experiences from the academic year. It also allowed the students more opportunities for reflection and leadership as they talked with peers, teachers, school leaders, and parents about what they had done and learned.

For those service celebrations, we featured a keynote speaker and then a gallery exhibition where students set up table displays about their service learning experiences and guests had a chance to walk around and talk with students. At the end of the evening, we would close with an announcement congratulating the students for their actions and impact.

Each year the service celebration gained momentum and it became a way to generate even more interest in authentic service learning and active global citizenship.

Mel Pubil, the Service Learning Coordinator at the American Community School of Abu Dhabi, also plans a service celebration at her school. She ran her first service celebration in the spring of 2023, and I recently interviewed her about the event (she includes a Ted Talks-style presentation space and even more opportunities for parents to engage in activities throughout the celebration).

Check out my interview with Mel for inspiration; you have time to plan a stellar service celebration in May!

If you have any questions about how to plan something like this, shoot me an email ( leeanne@leeannelavender.com); I would love to ideate with you!

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How to plan a service celebration - LeeAnne Lavender:Storyteller

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Before you get too close to the end of the semester and school year, think about how you can celebrate the successes of your service learning and global citizenship programs. Hosting a community-wide celebration can raise the profile of what you're doing and create a lot of momentum for meaningful a

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Amplifying sustainability through an interdisciplinary week for grade 7 students 

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Amplifying sustainability through an interdisciplinary week for grade 7 students 

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Check out how the team at the American Community School of Abu Dhabi designed a week-long interdisciplinary learning week that resulted in deep student engagement, learning and action!

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If you are a service learning or global citizenship educator who regularly incorporates action, sustainability, and changeseeking/chagemaking into your curriculum, chances are you have noticed connections and intersections between your content area and other content areas. Perhaps you have even considered teaming up with colleagues to create an interdisciplinary, experiential experience for students.

In this blog post, I get to share the story of how a team of grade 7 teachers at the American Community School of Abu Dhabi has accomplished this high level of collaboration. They just designed and ran a "Quest for Green" week-long program that was exemplary in how it pulled together multiple strands of the curriculum and sparked meaningful investigation, community engagement and action.

Creating an interdisciplinary and experiential learning experience that features service, sustainability, and action involves a multifaceted approach. Below are some key things to consider for educators looking to implement such a program, along with examples of how the ACS-Abu Dhabi Quest for Green experience exemplifies some of these approaches.

1. Start with a Vision

Define clear objectives that capture the essence of service, sustainability, and action for your interdisciplinary learning experience. What do you hope your students will achieve or learn? Why will an interdisciplinary and/or experiential approach deepen engagement and learning? Ensure your objectives are aligned with your school's broader educational goals and values.

The ACS-Abu Dhabi experience started with Innovation Coach Jenny Derby. She had been tasked with growing interdisciplinary approaches at the school and she partnered with Mel Pubil (the all-school service learning coordinator) to support the grade 7 team. A grade 7 science teacher had reached out to Mel about adding service to a unit, and this provided a natural entry point for an interdisciplinary approach that served as the foundation for the vision for Quest for Green. As ACS-Abu Dhabi has just moved to a new campus, ideating about green spaces and gardens at the school connected perfectly with the science unit's emphasis on sustainable agriculture. As math, social studies and language arts teachers partnered with science, they were all able to link their units to themes of sustainability, green spaces and food.

2. Engage in Collaborative Planning

3. Connect with the Community

4. Incorporate Experiential Learning Opportunities

8. Build Leadership and Teamwork Skills

9. Assess Progress and Impact

10. Cultivate a Culture of Service and Action

Beyond individual projects or programs, aim to foster a school-wide culture that values service, sustainability, and action. Celebrate achievements, share stories of impact, and encourage ongoing engagement with these themes.

Many grade 7 students are excited about the tools or prototypes they created and designed during Quest for Green and many students are continuing to work on their plans even though the official Quest for Green week is over. The engaging nature of this learning experience has created an intrinsic desire in students to investigate and apply their knowledge, and to listen deeply to community members and stakeholders. As a consequence, many students will now continue their work after school and in club settings, and this sets a lovely precedent for all learners - that personal passions sparked by curriculum and content can be meaningful and result in ongoing learning. As all students get to share their success stories at the Earth Day showcase, these stories will fuel even more awareness of sustainability and service as action, thus continuing to shift the narrative about changeseeking and changemaking at ACS-Abu Dhabi.

Jenny and Mel ran a Futures Thinking protocol with teachers after Quest for Green and realized their approach to planning Quest For Green can serve as a model for any major initiative in teaching and learning. They are thinking about how to extend this experience to create stronger frameworks for leading interdisciplinary experiences and to invite teachers into leadership roles, as well. Hear more about this at about the 24-minute mark in the video.

11. Ensure Inclusivity

By following these suggestions, you can design interdisciplinary and experiential learning experiences that not only enrich students' academic knowledge but also prepare them to be active, informed, and compassionate citizens of the world.

Listen to the interview with Mel Pubil and Jenny Derby (below) to glean more insights into how they led Quest for Green, and how their example might serve as a prototype for interdisciplinary learning experiences at your school.

If you are a service learning or global citizenship educator who regularly incorporates action, sustainability, and changeseeking/chagemaking into your curriculum, chances are you have noticed connections and intersections between your content area and other content areas. Perhaps you have even considered teaming up with colleagues to create an interdisciplinary, experiential experience for students.

In this blog post, I get to share the story of how a team of grade 7 teachers at the American Community School of Abu Dhabi has accomplished this high level of collaboration. They just designed and ran a "Quest for Green" week-long program that was exemplary in how it pulled together multiple strands of the curriculum and sparked meaningful investigation, community engagement and action.

Creating an interdisciplinary and experiential learning experience that features service, sustainability, and action involves a multifaceted approach. Below are some key things to consider for educators looking to implement such a program, along with examples of how the ACS-Abu Dhabi Quest for Green experience exemplifies some of these approaches.

1. Start with a Vision

Define clear objectives that capture the essence of service, sustainability, and action for your interdisciplinary learning experience. What do you hope your students will achieve or learn? Why will an interdisciplinary and/or experiential approach deepen engagement and learning? Ensure your objectives are aligned with your school's broader educational goals and values.

The ACS-Abu Dhabi experience started with Innovation Coach Jenny Derby. She had been tasked with growing interdisciplinary approaches at the school and she partnered with Mel Pubil (the all-school service learning coordinator) to support the grade 7 team. A grade 7 science teacher had reached out to Mel about adding service to a unit, and this provided a natural entry point for an interdisciplinary approach that served as the foundation for the vision for Quest for Green. As ACS-Abu Dhabi has just moved to a new campus, ideating about green spaces and gardens at the school connected perfectly with the science unit's emphasis on sustainable agriculture. As math, social studies and language arts teachers partnered with science, they were all able to link their units to themes of sustainability, green spaces and food.

2. Engage in Collaborative Planning

3. Connect with the Community

4. Incorporate Experiential Learning Opportunities

8. Build Leadership and Teamwork Skills

9. Assess Progress and Impact

10. Cultivate a Culture of Service and Action

Beyond individual projects or programs, aim to foster a school-wide culture that values service, sustainability, and action. Celebrate achievements, share stories of impact, and encourage ongoing engagement with these themes.

Many grade 7 students are excited about the tools or prototypes they created and designed during Quest for Green and many students are continuing to work on their plans even though the official Quest for Green week is over. The engaging nature of this learning experience has created an intrinsic desire in students to investigate and apply their knowledge, and to listen deeply to community members and stakeholders. As a consequence, many students will now continue their work after school and in club settings, and this sets a lovely precedent for all learners - that personal passions sparked by curriculum and content can be meaningful and result in ongoing learning. As all students get to share their success stories at the Earth Day showcase, these stories will fuel even more awareness of sustainability and service as action, thus continuing to shift the narrative about changeseeking and changemaking at ACS-Abu Dhabi.

Jenny and Mel ran a Futures Thinking protocol with teachers after Quest for Green and realized their approach to planning Quest For Green can serve as a model for any major initiative in teaching and learning. They are thinking about how to extend this experience to create stronger frameworks for leading interdisciplinary experiences and to invite teachers into leadership roles, as well. Hear more about this at about the 24-minute mark in the video.

11. Ensure Inclusivity

By following these suggestions, you can design interdisciplinary and experiential learning experiences that not only enrich students' academic knowledge but also prepare them to be active, informed, and compassionate citizens of the world.

Listen to the interview with Mel Pubil and Jenny Derby (below) to glean more insights into how they led Quest for Green, and how their example might serve as a prototype for interdisciplinary learning experiences at your school.

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How to plan an interdisciplinary, experiential learning experience - LeeAnne Lavender:Storyteller

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A grade 7 interdisciplinary learning experience at the American Community School of Abu Dhabi provides an excellent model of how to support students in an experiential deep dive into sustainability, community engagement and action.

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Elementary school students forge new community partnership

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Elementary school students forge new community partnership

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A new and growing community partnership was recently enhanced as elementary students wrote Earth Day poems in language arts classes at the American International School of Lagos and partner school Tarkwa Bay in Nigeria.

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Earth Day poems ground community partnership — LeeAnne Lavender:Storyteller

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Elementary teachers and students at the American International School of Lagos in Nigeria used poems for Earth Day to deepen a budding community partnership with a local school.

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Grade 9 student creates service learning framework: 4 Pillars for Mindful Service

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Grade 9 student creates service learning framework: 4 Pillars for Mindful Service

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A grade 9 student at the International School of Kigali in Rwanda has created a brilliant framework to ground service learning at her school and beyond.

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When a student understands, synthesizes and articulates a brilliant way of framing service learning and community engagement, we all better pay attention.

And this is exactly what has transpired at the International School of Kigali (ISK) in Rwanda. Grade 9 student Aya D. has created a framework called the "4 Pillars of Mindful Service" and she hopes it will guide students and teachers alike at ISK and beyond.

Aya enrolled in the ISK Service Learning Club this year because she wanted to be part of something meaningful. Sara Gregson and Nathan Haines, teachers and service learning leaders at ISK, have founded the club on principles of critical service learning. They want to support students in thinking about service and community engagement in deep, open-minded, reciprocal and inclusive ways.

As a result, as Aya learned about how to think about service learning, she made connections to mindfulness. The idea of four pillars grew in her mind: inclusion, presence, intention, and impact. These pillars, says Aya, are all necessary to engage with others in truly reciprocal ways.

Please watch the interview with Aya and Sara, and please feel free to use the four pillars in service learning and community engagement initiatives at your school. Please give Aya credit and a shout-out if you use her excellent framework!

I am SO grateful to Sara and Nathan for being intentional about engaging students in thoughtwork about service learning, and I am grateful to Aya for being reflective and intentional about sharing her ideas and framework with others.

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4 Pillars of Mindful Service - LeeAnne Lavender:Storyteller

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A grade 9 student at the International School of Kigali in Rwanda has created a new framework for service learning and community engagement called the "4 Pillars of Mindful Service". Check out this inspiring story!

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Grade 9 Story Circles for Intercultural Understanding and Community Engagement

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Grade 9 Story Circles for Intercultural Understanding and Community Engagement

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Grade 9 students at the International Community School of Addis Ababa finished the year with a unit rooted in story exchanges and story circles. Deep connections and empathy grew from the learning experiences in this unit, and the summative assessment allowed students to reflect deeply on what they had heard and learned.

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Rebecca Gillman and two colleagues from the International Community School of Addis Ababa in Ethiopia just designed a unit in their grade 9 English Language & Literature classes around story circles and deep listening.

After redesigning the entire curriculum of the grade 9 English class this year, some common themes surfaced including one theme about our "storied pasts" and how our experiences shape our identities. This theme was evident right from unit 1 at the start of the year; students explored poetry and responded to poems that resonated with them and connected in some way to their "storied pasts".

Later in the year, when students read William Kamkwamba's book The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, they investigated what it means to be an innovator and what conditions converge to inspire innovation. Again, the idea of "storied pasts" surfaced as students researched Kamkwamba's life journey.

In the final unit of the year, the grade 9 English team decided to do a deep dive into stories. They invited community members (teachers, leaders, school staff and community partners) to participate in story circles with grade 9 students.

Inspired by the work of Narrative 4 and Darla Deardorff (specifically, her protocol for story circles for intercultural understanding), Rebecca designed the experience in two rounds. In the first round, students were paired with a community member and they each shared a story. In round two, partner pairs joined together in circles of 6-8; each person shared their partner's story using a first-person perspective.

Through sharing stories, the students made deep connections with so many community members from varied backgrounds and experiences. Rebecca says there was a palpable energy in the room; students and adults alike were fully engaged and connecting in meaningful ways.

To reflect on the experience, students created stories to capture what happened and what they learned and felt. They shared these stories in a variety of forms, from written accounts to podcasts and digital stories. Here is a link to an overview of the summative task as well as one student's written story and another's podcast.

"A month after the story circle event, we had some community members from Mekedonia, a community partner across the city, come to our campus, and I asked the students to share their stories back to the people who had participated," says Rebecca. "It was so powerful. The men from Mekedonia had never had their stories validated in such a way before. There were tears and emotional responses. It was clear that this was a deeply important experience."

A student reflected on the impact of the story exchange and story circle: "I think storytelling is a fundamental part of who we are as humans. I think that by doing these circles, people's eyes are opened to a less self-centered view of life. Not only are our perspectives open when we are in the circles, but it also makes people more aware of the people around us and their lives. After leaving the circles I felt a sense of duty to get to know all the people I interact with on a deeper level. Storytelling is a way of connection that can go towards healing the distance between people and these connections are what shape a hate-free, and happy world."

Check out the video interview with Rebecca (below) to hear more about this deep listening experience that embodies the essence of service learning and active global citizenship. The "action" in this example is deep listening and relational connection, a vital foundation for everything we do with community partners.

Photos from the story circles at the International Community School of Addis Ababa.

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Story Circles for impactful community engagement - LeeAnne Lavender:Storyteller

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Grade 9 students at the International School of Addis Ababa just experienced an English unit centred around story circles and story exchanges. The result of this deep listening is a transformed sense of self and others.

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These standards from the International Schools Counsellors' Association would provide an excellent framework for assessing student participation in service learning and/or leadership.

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The ISCA Student Standards help school counselors to prioritize the content that is taught and assessed within and across the school's counseling curriculum. These standards are the foundation for classroom lessons, small groups, and activities within a school counseling program. They directly reflect the counseling program's mission and goals.

Students learn best in environments that are validating, respectful, supportive, inclusive, and safe. Implementing the ISCA Student Standards through the lens of equity and belonging is essential to improving outcomes for all students and creating a safe school culture free of bias and oppression.

Consistent standards that are adopted by international schools around the world promote equity and provide teachers, parents, and students with clear expectations to ensure that all students have the skills, attitudes, and knowledge necessary to succeed in life upon graduation from high school, regardless of where they received their Nursery-Grade 12 education.

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The ISCA Student Standards help school counselors to prioritize the content that is taught and assessed within and across the school's counseling curriculum. These standards are the foundation for classroom lessons, small groups, and activities within a school counseling program. They directly reflect the counseling program's mission and goals.

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Spanish & Deep Listening with Local Elders

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Spanish & Deep Listening with Local Elders

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A grade 9 student at SCIS (Shanghai Community International School) interviewed a number of elders at a nearby park for a Spanish unit rooted in learning about community. Her video captures the experience and also shows how digital storytelling products (like this video) can be used to raise awareness and advocate for others.

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https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KroeLnDiur1kKI_x8X4pRCcW784KzPstn4s1n9YgS2Y/edit?usp=sharing

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Reframing Service Learning with a Critical Lens (3 learning stories)

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Reframing Service Learning with a Critical Lens (3 learning stories)

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Grade 5 students at the International School of Kenya engaged in a social studies unit about human rights that culminated in a museum that featured art created by the students to represent what they had learned about human rights. The museum was a community event that embodies advocacy as action.

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Ania Judson's grade 2 students at the American International School of Lagos in Nigeria have been teaching others about mindfulness through their favourite breathing strategies. They've created videos in 2 languages to share with community members, and Ania starts each day with a mindfulness practice with her students. She has also created a beautiful mindfulness bulletin board with her students to keep self-care in focus (self-care is a vital component of service learning, in addition to caring for others and the planet!).

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Scav"end"gers: Empathy Interviews & Digital Storytelling

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Scav"end"gers: Empathy Interviews & Digital Storytelling

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A group of high school students from the ISF Academy in Hong Kong interviewed several individuals about scavenging cardboard; they also investigated root causes of this local issue and then created a video to demonstrate their learning.

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Scavendgers Presents | Intersectionality within the Problem of Scavenging.mp4

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A grade 11 student at the International School of Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia created a podcast and series of TikTok clips shared through the school's regular newsletter to advocate for multiple aspects of well-being.

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Service as Action for the PYP Exhibition

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Service as Action for the PYP Exhibition

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Grade 5 students at the International School of Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia engaged in a deep dive about human rights that led to impactful action in the PYP Exhibition. Students interviewed an author and representatives from local NGOs; they wrote biographies and poems; they created original art about human rights. All of these experiences led them to advocate for human rights at their PYP Exhibition!

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Grade 3 students at the International School of Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia used stories about changemaking to inspire their own storyboards and digital stories made using Pixton. These were shared widely with community members (advocacy as action)!

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A high school student at the Chinese International School in Hangzhou has created this fabulous changemaker podcast: 

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A high school student at the Chinese International School in Hangzhou has created this fabulous changemaker podcast: 

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This is an excellent example of a student who has been equipped to engage in service learning through curricular experiences, and then has launched her own initiative.

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Listen to The Phoenix Explorer on Spotify. To allow all members of our local community to develop understanding of the services that have been taken in action to make HK an even more empathetic society.

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PreK "Be Kind to Bees" unit: Advocacy using Chatterpix

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PreK "Be Kind to Bees" unit: Advocacy using Chatterpix

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The PreK students at the American Community School of Abu Dhabi used digital storytelling to advocate for bees after learning about pollinators.

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Grade 7 Math: Rigid Transformations & Congruence Unit (CBK Associates)

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Grade 7 Math: Rigid Transformations & Congruence Unit (CBK Associates)

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Migration Unit with Service Learning Resources

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Migration Unit with Service Learning Resources

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Celebrating student agency & advocacy through storytelling — LeeAnne Lavender:Storyteller

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When Dagne Furth, an experienced English literature and global citizenship educator, helped her students publish a book called Dear Tariq this past year, she knew she wanted to make the project available to teachers around the world.

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Digital Citizenship Skills in PreK: Using Chatterpix as a teaching and learning tool

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Digital Citizenship Skills in PreK: Using Chatterpix as a teaching and learning tool

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When Dulwich College Suzhou (DCSZ) nursery teacher Ben Widdowson learned about a fun digital storytelling tool called Chatterpix, he knew it was something he wanted to use with his young learners.

Ben teaches 2, 3 and 4-year-old children and the students all have iPads and use some devices at home.
"They know how to swipe and do basic things," says Ben. "I want them to see that we can use technology in active ways, not just for playing passive games, and that they can produce something meaningful. I want them to use the iPads for purposeful learning."

This is where Chatterpix became a valuable tool for Ben and his students in a recent unit about food. Students learned about fruits and vegetables and the types of foods they eat on a regular basis; as part of the unit, the class went on a field trip to the grocery store. Ben had students take photos of specific fruits and vegetables and, back in the classroom, use Chatterpix to record what they had learned about each one.

Chatterpix is a fun and easy app for iPads and iPhones that allows users to animate photographs. You can take a photo of any item and layer in an audio recording that animates the photo. The user gets to choose where to place a "mouth" so the object can talk, and it's also possible to add text and other graphic elements.

"Students learned the app quite quickly," says Ben. "One student mastered the whole app, start to finish, in a really short time and it was great to see him playing with it and discovering all he could do. I'm a big believer that we do something once and then come back to it again and again to learn the skills well and ensure mastery. I had a 2-year-old mastering an app after 20 minutes of playing with it and I wonder what he will be able to do next time."

Ben had his students practice what they wanted to say about specific fruits and vegetables and then record their stories. Students shared these and listened to them in class, and Ben recounts that everyone had fun and laughed as they learned and shared.

"The parents really enjoyed seeing the videos and were excited that the students were speaking some English," says Ben. "Most of my students are early language learners and this was the first time some of them said English words out loud for me, which was a big deal."

The tangible and immediate nature of Chatterpix as a digital storytelling tool also resonated with the young learners, allowing them to understand its purpose and receive feedback right away.

"Seeing the animation really helped them see why they were recording their messages. It was effective; at this age, you need instant feedback and gratification," reflects Ben.

Ben used Chatterpix in his next unit focused on the story of We're Going on a Bear Hunt. He read the story to his students and then tasked them with summarizing the story in parts. Students created story maps as a visual aid for recording their summaries, and used Chatterpix to layer those recordings onto illustrations of parts of the story.

"I love teaching nursery students because they come up with these amazing ideas," smiles Ben. "They have incredible imaginations and when they learn something new, it can become an obsession to keep learning. They're so passionate!"

Ben came to DCSZ after teaching in the UK for six years. He loves living in Suzhou and participated in the 4-week " Becoming a Digital Storyteller" course with EIM colleagues in February, 2023.

"The best part of the course for me was the core module video each week," says Ben. "Hearing and seeing examples of digital stories was helpful and that's what led me to Chatterpix and trying it out."

You can use Chatterpix for many different synthesis activities in everyday teaching and learning with learners of any age. An elementary art teacher at the International School of Kenya had students animate one of their own pieces of art and was also planning to have students animate portraits of artists to share biographical information based on research.

Marta Lobo Perez, a Spanish teacher at Dulwich College Singapore (DCSG) has used Chatterpix with her middle school Spanish students to animate various photographs with spoken Spanish, as well.

There are so many ways to use this simple app, and the fact that Ben has used it with the youngest EIM learners is exciting and purposeful. Building digital storytelling skills from PreK onwards is an excellent way to develop digital literacy as well as global and digital competencies, and Ben's story is an excellent example of what is possible at the start of that continuum.

Below: Ben's videos of Nursery students recording their voices using Chatterpix to show the foods they learned about in their food unit, and to re-tell We're Going on a Bear Hunt.

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PreK students use digital storytelling to demonstrate learning - LeeAnne Lavender:Storyteller

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When Dulwich College Suzhou (DCSZ) nursery teacher Ben Widdowson learned about a fun digital storytelling tool called Chatterpix, he knew it was something he wanted to use with his young learners.

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Storytelling & Advocacy for Healing with Khartoum American School

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Storytelling & Advocacy for Healing with Khartoum American School

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Healing Through Storytelling: a Journey of Resilience — LeeAnne Lavender:Storyteller

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Khartoum American School has been displaced since April of 2023 because of war in Sudan, and I had the opportunity to work with students and staff in November to use storytelling as a means of reflecting, healing and sharing messages of hope and resilience.

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Approaches for sustainable food, gardening and composting

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Approaches for sustainable food, gardening and composting

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Are you interested in getting a cooking, garden or composting program started at your school? Check out this story from the International School of Kenya for ideas about how to get started!
Nurturing Green Thumbs and Culinary Skills: The Story of ISK's "Tupike: Global Dishes" Club
At the International School of Kenya (ISK), a unique program intertwines the love of cooking with a commitment to sustainability. This initiative, spearheaded by the school's IB CAS coordinator, Joyce Gacheke-Tall, is a testament to the power of student-driven projects in fostering real-world skills and environmental awareness.
The Genesis of Tupike: Global Dishes
It all began with the vision of two Grade 10 students who aspired to start a cooking club. Their initiative gained momentum with Joyce's support. Joyce is a passionate advocate for sustainable farming, drawing from her own experiences of growing food on a small farm and at her boarding school. The club, named "Tupike: Global Dishes" - 'tupike' meaning 'let's cook' in Kiswahili - soon found a home in the newly equipped kitchen in the middle school building.
Gardening and Cooking: A Symbiotic Relationship
At the heart of the club's activities is the school's garden. Each semester, students decide on the herbs and vegetables to plant, with two students responsible for each garden patch. This hands-on approach not only teaches them about sustainable agriculture but also ensures that the recipes they cook are aligned with what is seasonally available from their garden.

Surplus produce is channelled to the school canteen and a monthly farmers' market at ISK, where parents eagerly purchase produce grown by the students. Funds raised from the sale of produce have been used for impactful projects, such as building a community kitchen with a service partner.

In addition to on-campus activities, the club organizes annual field trips to local farms, including an organic farm and Brown's Cheese Factory, where students engage in activities like pizza making and learn about sustainable and organic farming practices.
Integrating Sustainability Across the Curriculum
ISK's commitment to sustainability is not confined to the high school. In the elementary school, students care for chickens, ducks, and rabbits, there is a cooking elective for middle school students, and plans to introduce fish into ponds outside the high school science rooms by the Tupike group in January 2024.

ISK's sustainable food program, embodied in the Tupike: Global Dishes club, serves as an exemplary model for educational institutions worldwide. It demonstrates how schools can play a pivotal role in cultivating sustainable mindsets and actions, practical skills, and a sense of community in students.

As Joyce aptly puts it, "It's about more than just cooking; it's about understanding our connection to the earth and our responsibility towards it." This program offers several concrete ideas for how you can start a sustainable food program at your school.

A grade 10 student's written reflection offers additional insights into the impact of Tupike: "Cooking club has become the motivation that keeps me going through the week. On Monday, every morning, I say to myself: 'Just four more days until cooking club" and somehow my mood is lifted for a while. One of the significant values of cooking is that it enables individuals to control the ingredients and methods used to prepare food. I have learned the hard way, throughout the course of this year, that there are very few factors in my life that I have the power to control and the only solution to solving this feeling of incompetence is to add things to your life that you have relatively absolute control over. This solution has somehow become cooking club. In one particular session, we were given the leftover ingredients from the club's farmer's market booth and given only one direction: make it taste and look good. This generalization and lack of specification allowed my group and I to have full control over the creativity and techniques put into the dish. I can honestly say that it was in this session, where we were given the freedom to control every aspect of our dish, that the execution was the most unique, and fulfilling."
Check out the video interview with Joyce for specific details about aspects of the sustainable food program at ISK.

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Approaches & ideas for cooking & gardening at your school - LeeAnne Lavender:Storyteller

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Check out one school's multi-layered co-curricular approach to teaching students about sustainable food, from gardening and composting to cooking and social entrepreneurship.

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Grade 2 Capstone Project after Learning about Homelessness

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Grade 2 Capstone Project after Learning about Homelessness

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Investigating service learning best practices: foundations for a whole-school program

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Investigating service learning best practices: foundations for a whole-school program

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The International School of Kenya (ISK) is modelling how to create a community-wide understanding of curricular service learning to build a meaningful all-school program.

Service is an integral part of the ISK DNA and there has been a robust co-curricular service program at the school for decades; Director of Teaching and Learning, Ginny Prairie, who has experience with curricular service learning at previous schools, is excited to extend that commitment to service into the PreK-12 curriculum.

The ISK Learning Leadership Team's vision for this approach began in 2022/23 when she and a team at ISK crafted a definition for wellbeing on campus: "At ISK, wellbeing is equipping all learners with the knowledge and skills to navigate life's challenges while feeling good on the inside, functioning well on the outside, and doing good for others." The third component of this wellbeing statement, "doing good for others," aligns beautifully with service learning, as do the overall mission, vision and Educational Aims at ISK.

This is an exciting example of how service learning can support a school's leaders and educators in fulfilling its mission and vision in tangible ways.

Curricular service learning provides all stakeholders with:

Innovative, engaging and relevant approaches to teaching and learning (where knowledge and skills are transferred to concrete situations in local and global contexts)

A way to map service learning through the curriculum to create a cohesive and holistic experience for learners

Tools for deep listening, reflection and thought work in relation to power, privilege, Western saviourism, and critical, inclusive approaches to service learning and community engagement

Data to evaluate how students are being impacted in relation to the school's mission, vision and educational aims

In the fall of 2023/24, a Service Learning Committee was launched to investigate best practices in PreK-12 service learning programs and apply those to the ISK context to create recommendations for building a curricular program at the school. The committee is composed of educators from all divisions in the school, along with middle school principal Alexa Schmid who is chairing the committee.

I had the pleasure of being on campus at ISK for a week in October 2023 to work with the committee and meet with a number of stakeholders across all divisions, and I am supporting the work of the Service Learning Committee for the remainder of the year. Each month the committee meets to share progress in investigating aspects of service learning best practices, with the aim of creating a proposal for leaders in the spring of 2024.

The committee is investigating:

Reciprocal community partnerships

Exemplar service learning frameworks and models from other schools

Audit of existing community partnerships along with deep listening sessions with current partners

Student attitudes and motivations related to service & community engagement

Service learning stories & creating a strategic plan for sharing curricular service learning successes to enhance a school-wide culture

A case study involving a current co-curricular service experience called the Carbon Neutral Initiative to explore entry points and connections in the PreK-12 curriculum

The ISK approach is an excellent example and model of how to engage community members in growing an understanding of curricular service learning and an authentic, deep alignment with a school's mission, vision and aims.

As the Service Learning Committee develops a PreK-12 proposal and strategic plan for curricular service learning at ISK, I will post additional stories in this space to show how this approach results in tangible outcomes for curricular service learning. Stay tuned!

Photos below, left to right:

working with the ISK Advancement Office team to explore storytelling in relation to marketing, admissions and advancement.

a Zoom call with ISK CAS coordinator Joyce Gacheke -Tall (bottom right) and new community partners (Samantha and Carol) from Big Picture Kenya (an organization that builds leadership capacity with high school students from marginalized communities)

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Investigating Service Learning and Building an All-School Model - LeeAnne Lavender:Storyteller

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The International School of Kenya is building a curricular PreK-12 service learning program and modelling what it's like to create a strategy that is tailored to its context and rich history of service.

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Taking the Long View: A recipe for whole school transformation

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Taking the Long View: A recipe for whole school transformation

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Published in the winter edition of Childhood Education Innovations magazine

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Grade 6 Social Studies Unit features Circular Economy & Upcycling Fair

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Grade 6 Social Studies Unit features Circular Economy & Upcycling Fair

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In the heart of New Delhi, India, at the American Embassy School (AES), Grade 6 teacher Rachel Pregont finished the last school year with a transformative journey with her students, diving deep into the principles of upcycling and the benefits of a circular economy. This exemplary unit, rooted in the Inspire Citizens' Empathy to Impact cycle, showcased the stages of care, aware, able, and impact, and illustrates the power of learning experiences to drive meaningful change.

Rachel, who has been teaching at AES for two years after seven years in Brazil, recently shared her enthusiasm about the unit, highlighting the collaborative efforts and the foundation laid by the previous teacher, Megan Kuemmerlin. The AES partnership with Inspire Citizens and co-founder Aaron Moniz, the continuity of the curriculum, and the support from the previous teacher created a conducive environment for Rachel to build and expand the unit.

"The focus of the unit was on Sustainable Development Goal 12, responsible production and consumption," says Rachel. "I introduced the Question Formulation Technique (QFT), using an image of the circular economy as a prompt and this set the stage for the students to explore concepts of consumerism and consumption."

A pivotal moment in the unit was an exploration of the "off ramp" in the circular economy, the point where items are discarded and often end up in landfills. Rachel encouraged her students to contemplate the lifecycle of products and consider alternative ways to keep items in circulation.

Building on the design cycle from the previous year, students engaged with the school's makerspace and technology resources. Using discarded items like cardboard, styrofoam, and bubble wrap, they designed and prototyped upcycled products with a goal of creating a fair to sell upcycled creations.

The process was well-documented through a process journal slideshow, incorporating reflections and feedback from peers. Students did market research and considered their ideal customers and the environmental impact of their products. And, after weeks of working in the makerspace to create their products, the culmination was a vibrant fair where students showcased their creations and their emerging understanding of responsible production and consumption.

The community engagement was excellent and nearly every student sold out of their products. The funds raised, totaling $466 USD, were directed to a local organization ( https://swechha.in/) championing sustainable initiatives and upcycling.

To address the issue of sustainability further, a T-shirt swap was organized alongside the fair, drawing attention to the fast fashion industry.

Reflecting on the success of the unit, Rachel emphasizes the importance of flexibility and providing students with time in the makerspace. She also reflects that teaching this content when students are beginning to become more active with service is impactful.

"The energy and enthusiasm generated by the project were palpable, and our families actively participated in the fair, which was really exciting for the students," says Rachel. "This year, I want to help the students improve the quality of their products even more, and we're planning to collaborate with the English department in relation to an informational writing unit where they can research and write about sustainability."

This unit allows students to do a deep dive into caring about sustainability and responsible consumption and production, being aware of their role as consumers, feeling able to design upcycled products and advocate for sustainable mindsets, and creating impact through the final product fair. Aaron's role as a coach and mentor in facilitating this application of the empathy to impact model has been invaluable, and he's excited to see what will continue to evolve with this global citizenship unit in this academic year and beyond.

Below: photos from the grade 6 unit and upcycling fair from May 2023.

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In the heart of New Delhi, India, at the American Embassy School (AES), Grade 6 teacher Rachel Pregont finished the last school year with a transformative journey with her students, diving deep into the principles of upcycling and the benefits of a circular economy.

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PreK Students Advocate for Water Conservation

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PreK Students Advocate for Water Conservation

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Young learners at COJOWA (Colegio Jorge Washington in Cartagena, Colombia), are embarking on a journey to raise awareness about water conservation, and their enthusiasm is nothing short of inspiring. Partnering with Inspire Citizens, the school's pre-school initiative, known as the Maternal Water Project, is making waves in early childhood education.

Gloria Tangarife, the Pre-School Principal at COJOWA, has watched this impactful initiative unfold over two years. It all began last year when Gloria and her team decided to integrate Project-Based Learning (PBL) into the curriculum and make meaningful connections with service learning. The question they pondered was whether three-year-olds could actively participate in such an endeavor and, more importantly, how to make them feel they could contribute to global conversations about important issues like water conservation.

COJOWA's Maternal class is for 3- and 4-year-olds and is a Spanish program. In Pre-Kinder, students move to a bilingual program that emphasizes strong oral communication skills in both Spanish and English. This year, the Maternal class teachers embarked on a journey to align their regular curriculum standards with a single project that touched on science, values, mathematics, and Spanish, all while addressing Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) #6, focusing on clean water and sanitation.

Their curriculum was thoughtfully designed to intertwine various aspects of learning. In science, the young scholars delved into topics such as the human body and the importance of water. They discovered that all living things need water to survive. In Spanish, they immersed themselves in comprehension and literature about water, nurturing language skills.

"The central question that sparked curiosity and drove the project was simple yet profound: 'Why does water matter?'," says Gloria. "The students began by exploring ideas through games and activities designed to foster a deep understanding of water's significance and how it can be preserved."

This central question reflects the Care and Aware parts of the Inspire Citizens' empathy to impact cycle.

Taking inspiration from the Montessori philosophy for preschool education, the classrooms began to reflect on the importance of water conservation. Watering plants around the classroom and using water to clean lunch tables raised awareness about daily water consumption. The students began to observe how frequently they used water throughout the day, cultivating a newfound appreciation or care for this precious resource.

In a powerful experiential lesson, the children experienced a day without access to water at school. They couldn't use taps and had to transport buckets of water for various tasks like washing hands, flushing toilets, and watering plants. This hands-on exercise helped them draw connections between their own experiences and the plight of those who lack access to clean water.

Their newfound insights and awareness were brilliantly showcased through a presentation.

"The students dressed up as a joyful Mother Earth, symbolizing a world where everyone takes responsibility for water conservation," says Gloria. "The teachers created a 'circle of life' to illustrate the value of water, and they created individual 'water drop' posters to convey key insights. They also addressed the darker side of water misuse, portraying a saddened Mother Earth plagued by ocean pollution and wasteful water habits."

Art, music, and a flag ceremony were all part of the students' repertoire as they took action to educate their peers in preschool about the importance of water conservation. They even launched a campaign for demonstrating water conservation practices at home, and parents enthusiastically joined in, sharing videos of actions taken at home alongside their children. Many parents reported that their children had become passionate advocates for water conservation at home, showcasing a remarkable transfer of knowledge.

The impact of this project was deep. "I was so proud of this project," said Gloria.

The project's ripple effect is evident as these students, now in Pre-Kinder, continue to discuss the importance of valuing water.

This collaborative effort involved 45-47 students across three classes. Teachers worked together to plan and execute the project, leveraging each other's strengths. One teacher excelled in artistic endeavors and contributed to posters and artwork, while another teacher added musical elements. Occasionally, all three classes joined forces for joint activities.

Jessica Benitez, Community Engagement Coordinator at COJOWA, highlights the creativity and dedication of the teaching team, observing that they spent a lot of time planning and connecting with families.

"We are excited to bring PBL service learning projects to preschool," says Jessica. "The Inspire Citizens model involves the cycle of ' care, aware, able, and impact.' Now, when Gloria has a PBL project in preschool, teachers want to add this service learning cycle."

Gloria emphasized the power of investigating how to make a difference, no matter how small an action may seem. "Little steps make huge changes in the world," she said, highlighting a valuable lesson learned during the unit.

Gloria notes that connecting the curriculum to real-life outcomes creates excitement and engagement among students. The success of this project has sparked a new mindset among teachers, too, who are more eager to participate in service learning projects. And COJOWA's partnership with Aaron Moniz and Inspire Citizens plays a pivotal role in helping teachers bridge the gap between academic standards and real-world impact.

Jessica echoes this sentiment, adding that teachers are now seeking more support from Inspire Citizens for PBL planning and service learning. She emphasizes that the organization's positive reinforcement and celebration of teachers' efforts create a lot of momentum throughout the school's teaching teams.

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Young learners at COJOWA (Colegio Jorge Washington in Cartagena, Colombia), are embarking on a journey to raise awareness about water conservation, and their enthusiasm is nothing short of inspiring. Partnering with Inspire Citizens, the school's preschool initiative, known as the Maternal Water Pro

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Getting Started with All-School Service Learning at the International School of Kigali

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Getting Started with All-School Service Learning at the International School of Kigali

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AISA | Association of International Schools in Africa

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Inspiring Global Citizenship: A Journey towards Whole-School Service Learning
Image caption: Students from ISK and Agahozo Shalom Youth Village (a community partner in ISK's growing service learning program).
In January 2022, Sara Gregson took on the role of Service Learning Coordinator at the International School of Kigali (ISK) in Rwanda, excited to transform the school's approach to service learning. Working with Inspire Citizens, she has embarked on a journey to reshape the school's culture and foster a community of educators committed to service learning.

Despite being a small school with a limited budget, Sara knew that building a comprehensive service learning program required external expertise. In March of 2022, she attended the online AISA Service Learning Conference and crossed paths with Aaron Moniz from Inspire Citizens; she reached out to Aaron to create a strategic plan.

First, Sara and a dedicated pilot team collaborated virtually to establish a service learning mission and vision at ISK. The pilot team included Sara, the school's director and curriculum coordinator, and a teacher from each division in the school.

By the end of 2022, three teachers worked individually to create unit plans for the upcoming academic year. The initiative gained momentum with an in-house launch of the all-school service learning program and an additional all-staff session which resulted in 11 additional enthusiastic educators coming on board to plan service learning units.

"So many teachers have realized they are teaching units that are already aligned with the principles of service learning," says Sara. "If they tweak aspects or add elements, those units can be even more robust because of the service learning enhancement."

Currently, 15 teachers (more than half the ISK teaching staff, including the entire language department and many subject teachers) are engaged in coaching to redesign curriculum. As the program expands, it has become a natural hub for collaboration, fostering a sense of community among teachers who share ideas and logistical information like contacts for field trips.

Sara notes that excitement among teachers has grown gradually, as they have realized the potential to enhance existing units with service learning elements. This collaborative spirit has translated into increased awareness of what's happening in each other's classrooms, fulfilling one of the program's primary goals of building community at ISK.

For students at ISK, the impact of service learning is tangible. Adopting an assets-based community development model of community engagement (where students learn from and act with community partners), students have participated in meaningful interactions with local school partners. They have also engaged in reflective sessions about mindsets and perspectives, and have discussed how to avoid Western saviorism, and how to connect with local staff. Some students have demonstrated a commitment to language acquisition so they can communicate more effectively with local staff and local service partners.

The school is fostering relationships beyond its walls, inviting local students to shadow classes and explore Model United Nations (MUN), debates, student government, and friendly sports games. This exchange is a testament to the depth of connections that can be built through service learning.

Looking ahead, the school aims to embed service learning units across all grade levels, utilizing platforms like Toddle for curriculum planning. High school students have the opportunity to enroll in a Critical Global Citizenship class which includes opportunities for local internships and hands-on service.
"Initially we set a goal of one service learning unit per grade level and in the elementary school, we already have that," reflects Sara. "The focus now is to teach all of the units that have been planned and figure out how to monitor and assess them before, during and after implementation, and then evaluate the units from the teacher's point of view. We want to assess what additional support people need and how we can improve the units so they continue to be better."
Despite the challenges of launching and growing an all-school service learning program, Sara and co-service learning coordinator Nathan Haines are committed to teaching full-time while also coordinating service learning efforts. They are committed to building community partnerships and ensuring a sustainable program by actively involving local staff and establishing meaningful collaborations with local organizations.

As ISK moves forward, the vision is clear: service learning units seamlessly integrated into the curriculum, coupled with experiential learning in a steady progression from PreK to grade 12. The challenge now lies in ensuring the sustainability of this transformative program, leveraging the support of a dedicated local staff and nurturing a growing community of global citizens.

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Inspiring Global Citizenship: A Journey towards Whole-School Service Learning - AISA | Association of International Schools in Africa

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In January 2022, Sara Gregson took on the role of Service Learning Coordinator at the International School of Kigali (ISK) in Rwanda, excited to transform the school's approach to service learning. Working with Inspire Citizens, she has embarked on a journey to reshape the school's culture and foster a community of educators committed to service learning.

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Pre-Kindergarten students at Colegio Jorge Washington School (COJOWA) in Cartagena, Colombia, recently embarked on a heartwarming journey with elders in their families and community. A six-week learning unit called "How to Make the Elderly Smile" was an exploration of empathy, history, and service, culminating in a Christmas program that captured and created joy.

The Concept: Understanding and Caring for Elders

The unit was designed to help students understand the role of elders in their lives and the broader community. The project's core question was poignant: "How do we make the elderly smile?" This led to a series of activities that integrated various learning domains such as English vocabulary, math and social studies.

Family at the Forefront

The journey began with the children interviewing their grandparents. These interviews, conducted via video, delved into the grandparents' childhoods and the special moments they now share with their grandchildren. This exercise not only strengthened family bonds but also allowed the children to learn about history and traditions firsthand.

"The students recorded their interviews and shared them with the class," explains Pre-Kindergarten teacher Juanita Carvajales. "We noted themes that emerged in interviews with the grandparents such as traditional games they used to play like 'Mariamandunga,' typical to the Colombian coast. Then we found those games and showed them to the children and they were able to play them."

A highlight of the unit was inviting grandparents to the classroom during Montessori time, a morning portion of the school day where students were able to proudly showcase their learning environment and engage in activities with their grandparents.

"We also had a number of grandparents come into classes to do things like read stories," says Juanita. "One grandpa shared his story of being in the navy and one grandma is a famous baker here in the city. She owns a bakery and she brought cookies and taught the students how to decorate cookies and cupcakes. The students loved these interactions with different grandparents."

Beyond the Classroom: Engaging with the Community

Understanding that not all elderly individuals have the privilege of family support, COJOWA partnered with the local Fundación Dones de Misericordia. The foundation's director visited the school, sharing insights about the daily routines in elders' homes and how the students could contribute to their well-being. This interaction was an eye-opener for the young learners, helping them to become aware of the experience of community elders. In the Inspire Citizens' empathy to impact model, this was key in moving through the stages of "care, aware, able and impact".

The Christmas Program: A Festive Celebration of Giving

The unit's finale was a special Christmas program organized at COJOWA for seniors from the elders' home. Every year the Preschool students put on a Christmas show for families; this year, residents from the Dones de Misericordia Foundation elders' residence were invited to attend, and a portion of the funds raised from ticket sales will be donated to the Dones de Misericordia Foundation. Two residents were physically able to attend, along with a nurse and the director of the Fundación Dones de Misericordia, and the residents thoroughly enjoyed the show.

"We have worked with the Fundación Dones de Misericordia in a variety of ways with service learning, and they have a strong commitment to the elderly in their work," says Community Liaison Coordinator Jessica Benitez. "Partnering with their elders' home for this unit was really special."

Learning Through Action: Service and Reflection

The project wasn't just about learning; it was also about taking action. The students raised funds, and also collected clothing, food, and toiletries for the elders' home. These acts of service were not only about providing material support but also about teaching the young students the value of sharing and caring for those less privileged.

"The students learned to share, to become aware and conscious that not all grandparents are as privileged as theirs, and that there are ways to help others," says Pre-kindergarten teacher Luisa Lemaitre. "They also learned to value their time with their own grandparents, too."

Impact Beyond the Classroom

This project had a profound impact on the students. They learned valuable lessons about empathy, community service, and the importance of intergenerational relationships. The project also strengthened COJOWA's bond with Fundación Dones de Misericordia, reinforcing a long-term service partnership.

"At the end of the unit, the students reflected by sharing and posting photos of them with their grandparents," says Pre-Kindergarten teacher Cristina Barake. "We asked the students about what they like to do with their grandparents and how they like to make their grandparents happy and it was lovely to hear all of their stories."

This reflection was not just a closure of the unit, but an affirmation of the project's success in instilling the care-aware-able-impact cycle of thinking and being in the young learners' minds.
Final Reflections
"Aaron met with us before we launched this unit, and he helped us organize and ideate," says Luisa. "We had lots of ideas and he helped us create a focus."

Jessica explains that the design session was especially special because it happened when Aaron was on campus at COJOWA during a two-day visit to the school. "He got to meet people from the foundation and meet the director. Aaron helped us think about how to embed the four stages of 'Care, Aware, Able, Impact' into this learning experience," she reflects.

Through this project, COJOWA Pre-Kindergarten has exemplified how education can extend beyond academic learning to encompass emotional intelligence and service, truly preparing students to be responsible and empathetic global citizens.
Photos below feature the culminating Christmas show and two senior guests from the Dones de Misericordia Foundation, supplies collected by students to support seniors at the Dones de Misericordia Foundation elders' home, and grandparents visiting classes at COJOWA during the PreK unit. The video is an example of the interviews that PreK students recorded with their grandparents.

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Pre-Kindergarten students at Colegio Jorge Washington School (COJOWA) in Cartagena, Colombia, recently embarked on a heartwarming journey with elders in their families and community. A six-week learning unit called "How to Make the Elderly Smile" was an exploration of empathy, history, and service,

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Grade 9 English: Graphic Novel & Issues of Migration

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Grade 9 English: Graphic Novel & Issues of Migration

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In this culminating unit of grade 9 English, 2 teachers designed a full service learning unit where students connected the text to a variety of SDGs and then engaged in an investigation process of linking the novel to local and global issues. They created action plans after conducting MISO interviews and getting feedback from the service learning coordinator. Action plans included things like creating stories of Syrian refugees for an NGO website, raising awareness of the roots and causes of migration, and raising money for an NGO purchasing mosquito nets in Tanzania. The summative assessment for the unit included a written reflection, a conference with the teacher and a presentation to the class, as well as posting the group's story on the school website.

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Toddle's Guide to using ChatGPT to support planning for Service Learning

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Toddle's Guide to using ChatGPT to support planning for Service Learning

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ChatGPT for Impactful Service Learning

Who ever thought AI could help us with something as humane as service learning!

Our ChatGPT for Impactful Service Learning resource is designed in partnership with service learning educators and community engagement coordinators from around the world. The goal of the resource is to provide you with tested prompts that can help you and your students brainstorm and plan meaningful service learning initiatives.

Ideas for using the resource:

Efficient brainstorming sessions: Use the resource to come up with ideas that are tailored to your local context.

AI-powered reflective journals: Encourage students to use AI assistance for reflective journals, facilitating a quick and creative reflection process, and emphasising deep personal connections and sharing.

Community dialogues: Use ideas from AI to foster rich community dialogues, offering a smooth transition from ideas to action, and paving the way for nurturing engagements filled with warmth and understanding.

Empathy circles: After an AI-powered planning session, host empathy circles where the community can come together to share, empathise, and connect.

Mentorship and guidance: Allow service learning coordinators to leverage AI in providing timely and efficient mentorship, ensuring a fluid journey from brainstorming to execution, centered around human connection.

Disclaimer - This resource has been produced independently of and not endorsed by the IB. Toddle's resources seek to encourage sharing of perspectives and innovative ideas for classroom teaching & learning. They are not intended to be replacements for official IB guides and publications. Views and opinions expressed by the authors of these resources are personal and should not be construed as official guidance by the IB. Please seek assistance from your school's IB coordinator and/or refer to official IB documents before implementing ideas and strategies shared within these resources in your classroom.

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Embrace AI to enrich your service learning journey with Toddle's 'ChatGPT for Impactful Service Learning' resource, streamlining planning and amplifying heartfelt community connections and empathy.

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Toddle's Guide to Service Learning (by Cathryn Berger Kay and Shei Ascencio)

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Toddle's Guide to Service Learning (by Cathryn Berger Kay and Shei Ascencio)

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Sustainability & Food Waste: PreK Students Take Action

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Sustainability & Food Waste: PreK Students Take Action

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At the American Embassy School (AES) in New Delhi, a remarkable transformation has been taking place within the Pre-Kindergarten classrooms. Led by dedicated educators and in collaboration with Inspire Citizens, this innovative food waste project has not only changed the way young children think about waste but also fostered a deep sense of empathy and responsibility toward the environment.

During the 2022-2023 school year, Marion Strong and Ruchira Kochar took the lead in driving this project forward. However, the roots of this initiative date back four years. Marion, who had previously worked on gardening projects in Israel, envisioned bringing this concept to her students at AES. She believes nature is a generous giver, and wants students to think about giving something back to the local environment. Marion's focus became composting food waste generated by the Pre-K students who brought snacks from home.

Marion's innovative solution involved a three-pot system. As students discarded apple cores and food waste into one pot, they would cover it with coco peat mixed with bacteria. When one pot was full, it would gradually decompose, and the children would switch to another pot. Once the third pot was filled, compost from the first pot (which had been decomposing for some time) was used to enrich the school's garden.

"We have a Reggio-inspired approach here, and we're rooted in the value of caring," says Ruchira. "Caring for the planet, giving back... these ideas connect so well to this approach."

To further reduce waste overall, a significant change was implemented in 2022/23; the school began providing snacks for Pre-K students and this meant students didn't need to bring pre-packaged items from home (thus reducing a lot of trash). This shift not only impacted the children but also shifted the mindsets of parents and snack providers. It was a pivotal step in promoting responsible consumption among young learners that has led to an examination of reducing waste connected with snack time.

For example, students noticed that snacks were delivered on plates wrapped in cling wrap. In teacher Jenny Sysko's Pre-K room, they began saving the cling wrap and wrapping layers to form a ball. The students called this a "pollution ball" and were able to advocate for change by showing the ball (which grew quickly!) to cafeteria staff and asking for more sustainable options. Now, the snacks come in reusable containers or on plates with no single-use wrap.

At the same time, teachers introduced a re-use area where students would store paper and other materials that had been used once. Instead of reaching for a new piece of paper or other material, students began to make a habit of first checking the re-use area. They have also learned how to make new paper from discarded paper by breaking it down into a wet mash and screening it to make new sheets.

"It's all about mindsets," says Marion. "We want to teach the children how to think about resources in thoughtful ways. For example, we gathered all of our resources for the year-things like markers and crayons-and talked with the students about how this was a finite set of resources for the year. When something runs out, it's gone, and we keep track of that throughout the year. Raising awareness of this principle has helped students be much more mindful about what they use and how they use it."

Inspire Citizens co-founder, Aaron Moniz, is an essential collaborator with AES teachers and has been supporting the school's service learning and global citizenship initiatives for multiple years. When he first heard about the Pre-K plan for composting and gardening in the curriculum (in relation to the value of caring), he loved the vision and offered support by providing resources and information about composting. He introduced the idea of bokashi composting, and the team tried this method with students as a prototype. He also made sure school leaders were aware of the rich experience in Pre-K, and this has led to increased support for the school garden.

"Aaron has been working a lot with the idea of rewilding the school," adds Marion. "He did work with middle school classes in relation to butterfly gardens and native plants, and our Pre-K garden-which we hope will expand to other grade levels. We had lots of caterpillars last year and we're hoping for more butterflies this year. Aaron was coming and checking on us, to support and help, and it's been wonderful to work with him."

In addition to the garden and composting program, the Pre-K team introduced transparent trash cans with pictures for the youngest learners, making it easier for them to understand waste disposal. They also taught students how to take small steps towards sustainability, like using a single paper towel for hand-drying.

"Now this is completely normal for our Pre-K students. They all shake their hands several times before reaching for a single paper towel to dry their hands," says Ruchira. "It's a small action but it has resulted in a lot less waste in our pod."

In the current academic year, the project's focus is on expanding its reach and impact. The children are actively learning about soil, composting, food growth, and plant care, ensuring the foundation built in previous years continues to grow. Teachers aim to help students understand what happens to waste once it leaves the school campus and feel this broader perspective will help students appreciate the entire waste management cycle.

Teachers involved in the 2023/24 Pre-K team are Ruchira, Jenny, Laura Vizcarra, and Keren Sharon. Marion has moved to Frankfurt, Germany, and is looking forward to working on sustainability initiatives there.

"We're all passionate about sustainability aspects," says Keren. "I come from forest education and am excited we can go barefoot outside and be grounded, touching the soil. If living sustainably is part of our belief system and the way we connect with nature, there's a good chance for this to evolve."

Laura agrees: "Hearing the story of how this has grown in Pre-K, I am very inspired. Also hearing the kids talking about the compost with new kids and teaching them how to dispose of organic waste... I hope we can continue the work that this team has started."

Pre-K teaching and learning in the sustainability realm has evolved from a composting initiative into a comprehensive approach to resource management and waste reduction. The introduction of re-use areas, resource tracking, and educational initiatives on waste reduction have fundamentally changed the way the school community interacts with resources. Pre-K students were able to share their successes with grades 3, 4, and 5 last year and intend to work with high school students in 2023/24.

The Pre-Kindergarten food waste project at AES New Delhi, supported by Inspire Citizens, exemplifies how education can foster global citizenship and environmental responsibility. Marion, Ruchira, and the Pre-K team of dedicated educators have transformed simple composting into a holistic approach to sustainability, nurturing empathy, action, and impact for young learners.

Below: Photos of students in the garden, and one student with the "Pollution Ball" from Mrs. Sysko's PreK room (right).

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At the American Embassy School (AES) in New Delhi, a remarkable transformation has been taking place within the Pre-Kindergarten classrooms. Led by dedicated educators and in collaboration with Inspire Citizens, this innovative food waste project has not only changed the way young children think abo

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Essential Questions for Service Learning (Toddle)

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Essential Questions for Service Learning (Toddle)

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Toddle Service Learning Summit Essential Questions

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ISS (International School Suva - Fiji) students advocate for the oceans

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ISS (International School Suva - Fiji) students advocate for the oceans

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A picture to go along with Nilan's Personal Inventory Experience (post below): 

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A picture to go along with Nilan's Personal Inventory Experience (post below): 

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Using the Personal Inventory with an entire grade level

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Using the Personal Inventory with an entire grade level

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Nilan @ SSIS took the entire grade 7 and 8 classes through a 8-day experience involving the personal inventory. His aim was to celebrate each student and impact their social and emotional well-being and, at the same time, lay the foundation for service learning conversations and teams throughout the year.

https://www.canva.com/design/DAFKrdyzPoE/8-cqR3UXT7J5SbL_ONdXiA/view

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A Whole School Approach to Service Learning at Aga Khan Mombasa

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A Whole School Approach to Service Learning at Aga Khan Mombasa

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https://www.leeannelavender.com/blog/8xtay56wnljr2e81ndm4jqhu3cncgv

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When I had my first conversation with Kauthar Mohamed, the student leadership and service learning coordinator at Aga Khan Academy Mombasa in Kenya, I knew I needed to interview her and share her story on my blog.

Many schools may have some embedded curricular service learning, or aspire to build genuine and purposeful service learning programs that align with the mission and vision of the school. It can be challenging, though, to design a whole school model that meets the needs of learners, supports and engages teachers, and honours community partnerships as collaborative, reciprocal relationships.

At Aga Khan Academy Mombasa, Kauthar and her team have built a robust model that equips students to understand and apply all five stages of the service learning cycle through grade-level experiences (rooted in the timetable and in a detailed plan for lessons and community engagement) and curricular experiences in a variety of subject areas.

The service learning program involves the key aspects outlined in the infographic (above); she stresses that having dedicated time in the school timetable each week is key to success. Some additional components of the Aga Khan Academy's grade 6-10 program are:

* a Service Learning coordinator
* a Service as Action coordinator (who aligns unit objectives and curricular planning with service partnerships & service learning blocks in the timetable)
* grade-level fellows (recent university graduates who are trained in service learning and coordinate work with grade level homerooms)
* teachers who are engaged with professional development about service learning and who embed service learning experiences in the curriculum to align with grade-level work with community partners
* options for students in grades 6-10 to stay with one community partner for four years or to experience a range of community partners (a different partner each year)
* a new mentorship program for students in grades 6-8 where they will work with "experts" in a variety of civil society organizations, in thematic areas that align with the Aga Khan Development Network pillars and service learning
* a Service Learning handbook that guides all teachers, students, parents and community partners

Primary school students (up to and including grade 5) engage with service learning through the PYP curriculum and the PYP Exhibition, and grade 11 and 12 students engage with the IB CAS (Creativity, Activity and Service) program. Kauthar and her team focus on grades 6-10, equipping students to listen to community partners, identify community assets and create action plans that are collaborative and co-created with the community partners.

Check out the video below to learn more about how Kauthar has designed her service learning program. Some of her ideas might work for your school, too! And you may want to look at one of her student's Reflection Sitesto see how students document their service learning experiences, as well.

​And if you're looking for more examples of purposeful and thoughtful all-school models, check out these additional stories from schools that partner with Inspire Citizens:

* Whole school global citizenship at the International School Nido de Aguilas in Santiago, Chile
* Personalized learning through innovative scheduling & systems at Frankfurt International School, Germany
* Whole school service learning at the American Embassy School of New Delhi
* K-12 service learning at COJOWA School in Cartagena, Colombia

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A whole school approach to service learning - LeeAnne Lavender:Storyteller

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At Aga Khan Academy Mombasa, Kauthar Mohamed and her team have built a robust model for service learning that equips students to understand and apply all five stages of the service learning cycle.

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Impact: a Digital Storytelling Platform for 5th grade Language Arts & Social Studies (everyday teaching and learning, advocacy, citizen journalism and creative assessment)

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Impact: a Digital Storytelling Platform for 5th grade Language Arts & Social Studies (everyday teaching and learning, advocacy, citizen journalism and creative assessment)

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In September, two grade 5 teachers from St. Andrew's Episcopal School in Austin, Texas, wondered if they could create a digital storytelling platform that would create deep learning and engagement for students as well as awareness and action in the school community. Three months after their initial idea: the launch of Impact, a purposeful and powerful digital storytelling hub for students, teachers, parents and other members of the St. Andrew's community.

Michele Turner and Mark Garcia, the two educators leading this initiative, care a lot about their students and about the state of affairs on planet Earth. Advocates for peace, environmental sustainability, equity, inclusion and belonging, Michele and Mark are passionate about helping students engage with global issues, the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals, and principles of sustainability.

Michele (a teacher at several top international schools in various parts of the world before returning to the US in 2020) had contributed to a digital storytelling platform at her last international school and could see it was a way to build community and tell success stories about what was happening in innovative classrooms. She wanted to bring this storytelling approach to St. Andrew's to create a space where students would be thoroughly and actively engaged. Mark, a language arts teacher who loves storytelling and who brings a social justice lens to many units of study, was keen to join Michele. Together, they tackled the tech aspects of creating a website and managing posts, and the results - even in the first month of publishing content - have been powerful.

"I am excited to see my students working on their Impact stories," comments Michele. "They really want to get their work published because they care about the issues they're learning and writing about. You can see they're very motivated to succeed, and a lot of that has to do with their emerging passion for what they're learning about the world. I can see their communication skills improving quickly, as well as their critical thinking skills; having Impact as an end product or goal is really pushing the students to see how their learning in the classroom is connected to bigger issues in the community and world."

Mark agrees. He says that in his current novel study (of Esperanza Rising by Pam Muñoz Ryan), students can connect themes in the novel to the Sustainable Development Goals and issues of migration, socioeconomic inequalities and belonging.

"Michele and I came up with the three categories for posting on Impact - people, planet and perspective - as a way to help students understand they can communicate about what they're learning in a way that leads to positive change," says Mark. "Our school community cares about working towards a more just, equitable and kind world, and we think Impact can help with that mission."

To get started in realizing their goal of creating a digital storytelling platform, Michele and Mark partnered up with me and my husband Brian (international educator and tech wizard). We met online for four 2-hour coaching sessions where we supported Mark and Michele in designing and planning the site, and navigating the tech side of creating a site and posting a variety of media. As well, we spent time each week discussing mindsets for purposeful global citizenship, and how to help students engage with ideas and action in ways that would be open, fair, humble, curious and respectful.

The coaching partnership was rich, fun and positive, and equipped Michele and Mark with the time, resources and support they needed to achieve their goal and launch Impact. That happened at the beginning of December, with school administrators and parents attending a class launch event that celebrated the power of storytelling.

"We're excited to see how Impact will grow as we continue to post articles, videos and photos," says Michele. "Already parents and administrators have contacted us to engage around ideas, and we think this can be a powerful way of living out our school's mission."

You can visit Impact HERE.

Below is a video interview with Michele and Mark where you can hear them talk about the creation of Impact and how it's possible for any educator to get started with digital storytelling. If you're interested in creating your own digital storytelling platform for your classroom or school, get in touch and I would love to partner with you as a coach. By sharing your stories, you'll be participating in creating a culture of global awareness and citizenship at your school: what a powerful way to build authentic and meaningful global competencies for all. I'd love to hear from you!

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Creating a 5th Grade Digital Storytelling Platform - LeeAnne Lavender:Storyteller

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In September, two grade 5 teachers from St. Andrew's Episcopal School in Austin, Texas, wondered if they could create a digital storytelling platform to create deep learning and engagement for students as well as awareness and action in the school community. Three months after their initial idea, th

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Grade 7 Makerspace Buzzes with Service Learning & Design Thinking

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Grade 7 Makerspace Buzzes with Service Learning & Design Thinking

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Empathy as a Foundation of Critical Service Learning

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Empathy as a Foundation of Critical Service Learning

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https://www.leeannelavender.com/blog/qrbadqsfc6ofj7v58amety6103dw8t

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Equipping students to connect with others and develop the ability to listen and empathize with others is foundational in our service learning programs and experiences. This is the backbone of good, critical service learning that shapes our students' understanding of the world and opens up complex layers of thinking about self, community, equity and belonging.

Often, we celebrate the action components of service learning. The action that students take to create positive and purposeful change in local and global communities tends to be the focus of the stories we share as students demonstrate what they learned and what they did during a service learning experience.

While it's important and good to honour what students do as active global citizens engaged in applying curricular knowledge and skills to local and global community assets and needs, we need to spend more time celebrating the deep thought work and identity formation that is key to preparing students to take action.

In order for our students to take action in sustainable, open, inclusive and equitable ways, they need to spend time listening to community partners and others who are different from themselves. They need time to reflect deeply on what they have heard and learned, and to analyze their own sense of power and privilege in relation to others. They need the time and skills to unpack root causes of inequity and root causes of local and global issues. They need to know how to identify community assets and abundance that may look very different from what they see in their own communities.

The skills of deep listening can be taught when we create deliberate and purposeful experiences for our students to learn from and with community partners, and where we set up protocols for students to listen quietly and carefully to others. As you think about past, current or upcoming service learning experiences you may have planned or be planning, can you identify where you have carved out time for these types of settings for students?

The investigation stage of a service learning cycle is an excellent place to begin. As students engage with MISO (Media/Interviews/Surveys/Observations) action research, deep listening can take place in interviews with community members. Teachers can also schedule group interviews or listening sessions with community partners to augment MISO learning, and during the action stage, teachers can work with community partners to schedule purposeful listening/story circles so students have the opportunity to participate in thoughtful conversations and dialogue. During reflection, deep listening can also play a role as students share what they have learned and what questions they have about community assets and needs.

In all of these opportunities, students can cultivate genuine and deep empathy for others, to develop mindsets and dispositions that honour and celebrate others, and to grow the ability to think critically and carefully about the human experience from multiple perspectives.

There are several protocols available to help teachers plan for deep listening experiences with students to foster this type of learning. UNESCO has some excellent resources, as does Narrative 4.
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As we work to deepen our service learning and global citizenship practices to a more critical level, the role of empathy through deep listening and community connections becomes foundational in everything we do.

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Empathy - a foundation of critical service learning - LeeAnne Lavender:Storyteller

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Equipping students to connect with others and develop the ability to listen and empathize with others is foundational in our service learning programs and experiences. This is the backbone of good, critical service learning that shapes our students' understanding of the world and opens up complex la

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AISA Community Engagement & Learning Self-Assessment Tool

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AISA Community Engagement & Learning Self-Assessment Tool

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NYLC Service Learning & Equity: Self-Assessment Tool

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NYLC Service Learning & Equity: Self-Assessment Tool

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Self Assessment Tools_Digital (8.5 × 11 in) (7).pdf

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National Youth Leadership Council Service Learning Standards

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National Youth Leadership Council Service Learning Standards

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The K-12 Service-Learning Standards for Quality Practice were developed by the National Youth Leadership Council in partnership with other leaders in the service-learning field.

These standards represent service-learning best practices to ensure high-quality service-learning experiences that engage and empower youth to create positive change while developing academic and civic knowledge and skills.

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The Ultimate Creative Website Builder These standards represent service-learning best practices to ensure high-quality service-learning experiences that engage and empower youth to create positive change while developing academic and civic knowledge and skills.

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From Taxi Cab Service to Meaningful Action by Cathryn Berger Kaye

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From Taxi Cab Service to Meaningful Action by Cathryn Berger Kaye

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cbk associates.com - BRINGING CONNECTED LEARNING TO LIFE

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I have been at schools where the entire focus of service is on drives:

Food drives - for both people and dogs/cats

Coat drives

School supply drives

Book drives

Toiletry drives

Penny drives

And likely more types than I can think of at the moment. Of course there are organizations that rely on these donations and the partnerships that are created can be meaningful and substantial. Or they can be superficial and misleading.

Years ago, I was describing this type of activity and found myself calling it "taxicab service" with the image of students transporting items from home to school - collecting and dropping off. And I wondered, if we are promoting service learning, where is the learning?

Perhaps even more important, if this is the only kind of service that youth participate in (this being indirect service), then the hidden or not so hidden message is "we can keep others at arm's length and not be personally involved."

In all cases of aiming for meaningful service learning, I advise following the five stages - Investigation, Preparation, Action, (ongoing) Reflection, and Demonstration. Often, and not always, drives start with the action and an announcement: Bring in cans of food and place them in a box by the office. Or the dynamic in setup as a competition which is detrimental in that it pits students against students rather than all collaborating with a common purpose and aim: to ease food access within the community. And if the receiving organization is not part of the picture, then an assortment of food that doesn't meet the specific community needs may be gathered. Another scenario: using a canned food drive to clean out the old cans in the cupboard, some without labels, and some expired.

An educator once shared that his school was giving used textbooks to a school that was in short supply as they received bright and shiny new books to go along with their one-to-one laptops. Never mind that there was significant dated content that was inaccurate in these books.

When toiletries are collected from hotels on holiday and then donated, perhaps these can meet an immediate need for a select group. However, are we learning about people and their situations and circumstances that require this assistance? Are we reinforcing a deficit model or service learning by only considering "what's wrong?" as opposed to an asset-based model where we also look at the strengths people have despite their circumstances, and all grow together?

I learned of a high school that was visiting a men's shelter and saw a library filled with books. Being curious, a student asked, "Why so many books?" The director responded, "The men tire of watching television and spend more time reading in the evening." The students asked if they could arrange a book club and meet and discuss books everyone has read. I always wondered who learned more in this situation.

Kindergarten children in Massachusetts visited a local food bank and charted the different kinds of foods and quantities. They learned about how food was collected and distributed. Photographs were taken and the children wrote an informative book about the organization, described how it worked, and itemized the ongoing year round support needed to meet ongoing food insecurity. The distribution of this book significantly increased the amount of food received and ensured the kinds of food were collected.

Students at an international school in Tanzania read a book written by local girls in a nearby school, describing their lives - challenges and joys. They asked if they could meet the authors. A visit brought mutual learning as they exchanged experiences through interviews and games. When the visiting students saw the lack of books at the school, they all collaborated together to design a book drive to ensure the school library was better equipped to move towards educational equity.

In Cincinnati, after attending one of my workshops, a teacher returned to her high school class with quote cards. If you have ever been to my in person workshops, you know that my business cards have 60 different quotes on the back, and I use them for interactions and to stimulate service learning ideas. While the teacher was using these for interactions, a coat drive was happening at the school. Another "taxicab" situation which the teacher said later was annual and never really engaged the kids. However, this year a student had an idea: transfer the quote cards onto fabric and sew a quote in each coat creating "quote coats." According to the teacher, this was transformational. The students took each coat and really thought about who would wear the coat, the age, and how it may be worn. They took their time to select the right quote for each coat. And then the students wanted to be part of the coat distribution.

Quote Coats!

Book drives can be extremely dynamic, a wonderful opportunity to discuss child development and what books are good for what ages. And what to do with a used book that is too worn. How wonderful to sit with a child and read a book and then gift it to them, and perhaps write a book together that can be given to another child.

Students in Warsaw raised money for children who had chronic illness. Probably through another bake sale. During a consultation with their teachers I simply asked, "What interests, skills and talents could these sixth graders share?" The ideas were astounding! And then they asked their students! They had wanted to connect - but didn't know this was possible! They made friendship bracelets, exchanged postcards, and made short videos of original stories.

More and more I see service learning as building mutually valued relationships. When we pause to consider how taxicab service can be transformed, we elevate everyone involved and grow meaningful reciprocal relationships for all.

Cathryn Berger Kaye, M.A.

CBK Associates

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From "Taxicab" Service to Meaningful Action - cbk associates.com

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I have been at schools where the entire focus of service is on drives: Food drives - for both people and dogs/cats Coat drives School supply drives Book drives Toiletry drives Penny drives And likely more types than I can think of at the moment.

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SCIS Whole School Community Voices Project

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SCIS Whole School Community Voices Project

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Using your Makerspace to introduce Sustainability and Service

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Using your Makerspace to introduce Sustainability and Service

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As part of an interdisciplinary unit examining concepts related to sustainable design as future-focused solutions, students engaged in an Empathy to Impact project in which they explored and acted for community well-being through lenses of energy, food, imagination and play on campus.

Here, students investigated a variety of sustainable designs before diving deep into a design project that might enhance personal and community knowledge, well-being, decision-making, and futures thinking in reimagining holistic well-being, energy solutions, and responsible consumption and production.

WHY:
Utilizing a sustainable design philosophy encourages students to make decisions at each phase of the design process that will reduce negative impacts on the environment and the health of the community without compromising foundational, social needs. Sustainable design is an integrated, holistic approach that encourages transformative learning such as complex systems thinking, while exploring compromise and tradeoffs in making more challenging decisions.

The basic objectives of sustainable design is to reduce consumption of non-renewable resources, minimize waste, and create healthy, productive communities and environments.
HOW:
By launching students into a design project that focused on the internal school and local community, students can ideate distinct needs of the community through observations, interviews, surveys and research on sustainable design.

In this project, students honed in on three specific design challenges that they noticed as community needs as well as attainable actions:

1. Help community members build a deeper understanding of climate change and how green energy solutions work - demystifying the science through building and showcasing models related to wind, solar, and hydro-electric solutions.

2. Investigate local small scale and urban farming programs that can help better understand systems related to our diets, while unpacking food's effect on the planet and local communities in economic and social ways. Here, the square foot gardens and aquaponics models built by students, sparked complex systems thinking about the future of agriculture: Questions remain on whether small-scale farming that brings agriculture closer to urban populations will actually increase food security and improve agriculture's environmental footprint by reducing the emissions associated with the production and transport of food.

3. Explore, design, and host a day of play around the role non-digital, up-cycled games can play in bringing greater happiness and health to a campus community.

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As part of an interdisciplinary unit examining concepts related to sustainable design as future-focused solutions, students engaged in an Empathy to Impact project in which they explored and acted for community well-being through lenses of energy, food, imagination and play on campus.

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Grade 4: Futures Thinking and Theatre for Impact

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Grade 4: Futures Thinking and Theatre for Impact

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Edie Moon devised the concept for a drama festival with workshops on everything from make-up to movement to lighting as well as guest performances, provocations, script-writing mentoring, and much more, all under the powerful theme: The Future In Our Hands.

Students were not expected to solve the world's problems, but were invited to find the power within themselves to act for change and inspire and ignite the flame in others through their performances. Students devised the scripts and narration, students planned the production including visuals, and sound effects, students applied their workshops to their performances, students prepared for their final performances, and they did so all in one week!

The final performances were shared with certain members of the SFS community, and were recorded to be shared virtually with audiences at home.

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Students were asked to imagine the future they want and need: To spark clearer thinking and illuminate what can be for audiences. They were each invited to find the power within themselves to use theater to express creativity and this strategic foresight, inspiring others through their screenwriting

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Taking it Outside: Learning in the Garden

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Taking it Outside: Learning in the Garden

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Inspire Citizens co-founder Aaron Moniz has been working with teachers from all grade levels at IS-Prague to develop a sustainability thread in the curriculum. He has supported fifth grade teachers in designing a personal project rooted in the SDGs and water access, and he has met with most learning teams in the school. He has done some deep work with the vertical science team to embed one sustainability unit per grade level and this has resulted in some powerful learning experiences for students.

"We used the Inspire Citizens' Empathy to Impact approach and started by linking to the Sustainable Development Goals, linked to the content standards of the units, looked at enhanced opportunities for action, designed the projects, delivered the projects, and then conducted reflection meetings with the teams to improve implementation for next year," explains Aaron.

The scope and sequence of the science/sustainability units looks like this:

ECF 3/4 - Exploring My Environment

ECF 5 - Nature Scientists

Grade 1 - Life Cycles + Parks Project

Grade 2 - Human Body Systems

Grade 3 - Sustainability

Grade 5 - Water Sustainability + PYP Exhibition

IBDP Group 4 - Sustainability Action Projects

G9 Science - School Sustainability Audit

G10 Science - Energy and Climate Change

Grade 7 - Biodiversity and Art (consult)

Grade 6 Sustainability IDU

Finally, Inspire Citizens (Aaron and Scott) were also involved in developing a Changemaker student leadership program at ISP where student leaders defined the skills that they needed to become changemakers, and then identified their talents, passions, and issues they care deeply about. From there, students engaged in a root cause analysis, community assets mapping, action planning, team building and communication protocols, and ideation around desired futures. The final step was to take action and conduct a changemaker project at the school.

One of the student changemaker projects involved working with the school communications department to showcase innovation and build a culture of changemaking at ISP. Here is a story the students wrote about Aaron's recent visit to work on-site with ISP teachers and students: https://www.isp.cz/learning-story/changemakers-for-a-sustainable-future/

"It's exciting to see people's mindsets around sustainability evolving," says Kerry. "For instance, we hosted a sustainability afternoon with the librarians and offered activities like creating lip balm, making beeswax wraps, upcycling t-shirts into bags, and recycling paper. The students were so excited and now they are talking about making upcycled gifts for others and cleaning up trash. They are much more aware of trash - their own and that of others - now."

The momentum around sustainability education at ISP is growing, and the garden and outdoor education program is at the core of the enthusiasm that is building. As students engage in age-appropriate service and sustainability learning at all levels, a deep connection and care for nature is emerging.

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Kerry Craig is the Outdoor Learning teacher at the International School of Prague (ISP) and she is thrilled to see how this new program is growing roots and gaining momentum.

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A Whole School Approach to Service Learning at COJOWA

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A Whole School Approach to Service Learning at COJOWA

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"We came up with five new initiatives related to values in action," explains School Director Dr. Nick Glab. "We want to develop a habit for service for our students, preschool to 12th grade. Whatever they end up studying and doing professionally, we want them to connect their skills and passions to a positive impact in the world. This has even been embedded into our vision statement of 'learning together as reflective citizens and innovative thinkers to build a better tomorrow'."

The new strategic plan featured five years with one new initiative taking center stage each year. In year one the focus was on social and emotional learning and the power of growth mindsets. In year two, the emphasis was on innovative thinking and the development of deep project-based learning approaches. This year, year 3, revolves around the "Build our Better Tomorrow" service learning plan.

"To prepare for this year, we came together as a leadership team to develop common agreements for our service learning program," explains Nick. "We want our local teachers to be at the forefront of this, the educators who teach Spanish and Colombian social studies. When we met Inspire Citizens, we realized we could really use some help getting this off the ground and they have helped us develop the entire program."

Jessica Benitez, the Community Engagement Coordinator at COJOWA, adds that the goal is to design one service learning experience per grade level connected to at least one United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal, and to cultivate meaningful community partnerships for service learning action.

"Working with Inspire Citizens, we engaged in visioning sessions and identified teachers who could be involved in designing pilot curricular experiences this year," says Jessica. "We developed three pilot teams for three semesters, and the first team involves five grade levels at the school; these teams have been working on designing units this year."

The Inspire Citizens team worked with each of the phase 1 grade-level teams to identify a unit that could be reshaped with a service learning foundation. Pre-kindergarten and Kindergarten students will experience service learning in relation to a "Parts of the Body" unit that explores senses, actions and emotions. Grade 3 students will dive into service learning in a "Climate and Landscapes" unit with an emphasis on food security, agriculture and farming. Grade 8 students will learn about historic periods in social studies (with a focus on indigenous history and the discovery and conquest of the American continent) and grade 9 students will zoom in on the period of colonialism and Colombian independence. Both social studies experiences will revolve around a service learning experience.

"Partnering with government and non-government organizations like Escuela de Gobierno y Liderazgo de Cartagena and Fundación Santo Domingo will allow us to involve our students in processes of conserving our cultural heritage," says Jessica. "In general, developing these service learning units with local partners will allow us to contribute to initiatives aligned with the SDGs that these organizations are leading in different communities of the city."

Eugenia Diaz, the Curriculum and Assessment Coordinator at COJOWA, is excited about the student engagement and deep learning that will emerge from the service learning experiences.

"Teachers have engaged in planning the redesigned units this semester, and will begin teaching these units in the first semester of the next school year." explains Eugenia, "We'll assess how things are going as we have our second team of teachers planning and designing units for phase 2, and likewise for phase 3. Inspire Citizens is guiding the process, with the goal of helping each student care about what's happening in the world, be aware, and then act for impact."

School leaders and teachers have invested time in learning about service learning and the Inspire Citizens Empathy to Impact model, and in developing resources and tools to make this experience meaningful and enjoyable for the educators involved.

"Our teachers have been so open and eager; there are many people at COJOWA who have open hearts for service," says Eugenia.

Inspire Citizens Co-founder Aaron Moniz and facilitator Scott Jamieson have been COJOWA's lead partners with this initiative. As phase 2 and 3 begin, Jessica and Eugenia will take on more leadership with Spanish-speaking faculty members.

"I really want our students to develop a true sense of social responsibility, but in a different way than how we used to think about community service," says Nick. "I have learned a lot myself as we've explored this, and I hope our community embraces a new way of thinking about service so we can all find ways to have an impact on the world whatever our skills and talents are. My dream is that our entire community has that mindset shift and believes that creating social impact is a responsibility for all of us."

The graphics (below) show how the dynamic elements of the COJOWA strategic plan ensure a thorough and holistic approach to embedding service learning in all aspects of the school curriculum.

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"We came up with five new initiatives related to values in action," explains School Director Dr. Nick Glab. "We want to develop a habit for service for our students, preschool to 12th grade. Whatever they end up studying and doing professionally, we want them to connect their skills and passions to a positive impact in the world.

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Service as Action: A Whole School Model at AES

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Service as Action: A Whole School Model at AES

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The American Embassy School of New Delhi (AES) in India had a goal: they wanted to embed a meaningful service learning experience in every grade level of the school from pre-kindergarten to grade 12.

They knew they needed help to make this happen and leaders reached out to Inspire Citizens. What has transpired? An incredible partnership, a lot of enthusiastic teachers and quite a bit of professional learning magic.

"We needed someone who would walk with us side by side to get service learning off the ground in a meaningful way," explains Elementary School Teaching and Learning Coordinator Diane Ajamian. "Aaron came on board and has provided such practical guidance for us."

Aaron Moniz, co-founder of Inspire Citizens, designed an experience for a pilot group in 2021/22. The teachers in this group met with Aaron to learn and plan, implementing learning experiences as they progressed with this meaningful work.

"The feedback we received - left, right and center - from everyone was so positive and there was such a buzz about what Aaron was doing," smiles Diane. "Soon other teams were asking if they could have time to plan with Aaron, too, so going into next year we have offered an open invitation for grade level teams to plan a unit with him. The following year, we'll get the remainder of our teachers on board."

The pilot team included the grade 5 team from the elementary school, the entire social studies team for the middle school (grades 6,7 and 8) and the grade 9 social studies team for the high school. They met with Aaron during a professional learning day in November and then again for two 90-minute Zoom planning sessions per team.

"We celebrated our partnership with Inspire Citizens with a school-wide launch, supported by the pilot teams and our service learning core team in February. This launch included every member of our faculty and staff as Aaron shared our definition of service, introduced the Sustainable Development Goals and the Empathy to Impact model." explains Diane. "Aaron was also able to share his story with our whole faculty and there's been a lot of energy around the whole initiative."

Teachers have been exploring the Inspire Citizens' Empathy to Impact cycle alongside tools and resources to engage in purposeful service action embedded in curricular outcomes.

The grade 5 team worked on redesigning an end-of-year unit with a health and well-being theme. They focussed on sleep, nutrition, screen time and other key aspects of health and well-being to prepare students for summer and for a deeper sense of self-knowledge. Students learned about the Wellness Wheel and spent time reflecting and setting personal goals.

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The American Embassy School of New Delhi (AES) in India had a goal: they wanted to embed a meaningful service learning experience in every grade level of the school from pre-kindergarten to grade 12. They knew they needed help to make this happen and leaders reached out to Inspire Citizens.

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Redesigning a School's Global Citizenship Journey

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Redesigning a School's Global Citizenship Journey

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Educators at Nido (The International School Nido de Aguilas) in Santiago, Chile, have been doing some deep spadework in redefining their purpose and vision for the future.

"The pandemic has caused so many schools to engage in deep identity reflection," explains Patricia Podorsek, Nido Director of Teaching and Learning. "At Nido, we had to trim and trim during the pandemic and, like any season of winter, we went into a reflective mode and realized our school's guiding statements were bulky and heavy."

Patricia and her team analyzed the school's mission and vision statements and identified 28 distinct attributes represented in both statements.

"We knew we needed to focus and simplify," she reflects. "With the previous mission and vision statements, it was impossible to live into the spirit of being a mission-driven school."

The leadership team simplified the school's mission to be more agile and fresh, and to allow the team to focus on the primary goals and dreams for Nido students.

The new Nido mission statement is this: "Nido empowers learners to connect authentically, explore with curiosity, and act with purpose." The key action words in this statement, as identified by the leadership team, are Connect, Explore and Act.

The vision statement developed to accompany the new mission statement says: "The International School Nido de Aguilas strives to be an open and dynamic global learning community." And the mission and vision statements align with the school's core values: engagement, ingenuity, adaptability, generosity and happiness.

"Working on streamlining our mission and vision was liberating work," says Patricia, "Then, as we explored more opportunities for agility in our school and school systems, Inspire Citizens came into the conversation. They were recommended to us initially by a staff member who had previously worked with them in Beijing, and no other organization is doing the kind of work they are doing to help schools navigate how to think and plan for the future in a way that merges global citizenship with futures thinking."

The Inspire Citizens team has helped Nido teachers unpack the three key words from the new mission statement (connect, explore and act) with a future-focussed mindset, and they have also supported the development of a "Portrait of a Nido Learner".

Key descriptors in the portrait of a learner are that Nido students will be inquirers, thinkers, designers, connectors and changemakers.

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"As we explored more opportunities for agility in our school and school systems, Inspire Citizens came into the conversation.

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The Story Behind the Picture: Photography & Community Engagement

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The Story Behind the Picture: Photography & Community Engagement

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Grade 7 teacher Jenny Hope Lewis loves photography. So when she had a chance to design a unit for her social studies students that would connect them with the local community, she knew that photography could be the perfect lens for an impactful learning experience.

Jenny worked with her grade 7 teaching colleague Megan Kuemmerlin and the two of them created an outline for a brand new unit..

"In our first social studies unit for the year, we focus on understanding ourselves better; the unit is called 'eyes on self'", explains Jenny. "In our second unit we turned our 'eyes to the world' and spent time learning about the war in the Ukraine. At the end of this unit, with Aaron's help, we realized we probably knew more about the Ukraine than we did about our own neighbourhood, and this became the focus of our third unit."

Jenny works at the American Embassy School (AES) in New Delhi, India. The school is located in the embassy neighbourhood so there are a lot of wealthy homes, but there is also a slum community adjacent to the upscale area.

"It's a stark contrast," reflects Jenny. "We realized the students had never visited this part of the local area, and we wondered how we might connect. We worked with our local staff and our TAs, and our students got to interview local staff who live in the nearby community. Those staff members also oriented us for community visits and helped us know where to go."

The students and teachers visited the local community multiple times and got to know the neighbourhood and its residents. They developed questions they wanted to ask local residents and spent time interviewing people and taking photos. From those initial photos, they figured out what they wanted to know more about.

Hence the title of this social studies unit: "The story behind the picture".

In observing life in the nearby community, the students noticed a lot and developed even more questions.

"One day a water truck arrived to deliver water and the students had so many questions," remembers Jenny. "They wanted to know why people didn't have water, and they noticed armed guards near the water trucks and wanted to know why they were there. One student ended up writing to our head of security with questions, and this sparked a conversation with our head of school about what it means to be an inquiry school. She (the head of school) said we need to be open to questions, and we need to change how we do things."

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Grade 7 teacher Jenny Hope Lewis loves photography. So when she had a chance to design a unit for her social studies students that would connect them with the local community, she knew that photography could be the perfect lens for an impactful learning experience.

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Grade 4 Wabi Sabi Poetry & Connections with Nature

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Grade 4 Wabi Sabi Poetry & Connections with Nature

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When Inspire Citizens facilitator Ivy Yan recently shared some photographs with grade 4 students at Frankfurt International School (FIS), she introduced them to the concept of wabi sabi and sparked a powerful learning experience in their poetry unit.

Wabi sabi is a Japanese term and concept that refers to the beauty, wonder and appreciation we can find in imperfection. Something that is imperfect can be beautiful in so many ways, and can also remind us to pay attention, be present and celebrate everyday moments and items.

Iv, who specializes in deep happiness and environmental conservation, is intrigued and fascinated by the concept of wabi sabi, and feels it encompasses many relevant and important truths about how we see the world and what we appreciate.

She was recently at FIS for their Changemaker Conference and spent a follow-up day in classrooms with students. Chris Thompson's grade 4 class was nearing the end of a unit about poetry when Ivy shared her photographs featuring natural objects such as rocks and cabbage. The students were challenged to see the beauty in the imperfections of these everyday objects and then write poems in response.

"In this unit, the students learned about how we can use poetry to express ourselves, and this tied into the concept of wabi sabi so nicely," says Chris. "The students learned about various elements of poetry and types of poems, and kept poetry notebooks to capture what they noticed about different poems and what kind of action was inspired by various poems."

Students also wrote poetry throughout the unit, and wabi sabi became a way to consolidate the writing experience to wrap up the unit. After learning about wabi sabi, the students took their own photographs of things on campus that reflected everyday or imperfect beauty, and then wrote poems based on those photographs.

Chris gathered several students together for a lunchtime session to reflect on the poems they had created and shared with each other, and it was clear they had been deeply impacted by the experience.

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When Inspire Citizens facilitator Ivy Yan recently shared some photographs with grade 4 students at Frankfurt International School (FIS), she introduced them to the concept of wabi sabi and sparked a powerful learning experience in their poetry unit.

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Grade 1 Learning Experience about Anti-Bias results in Community Interviews and a Gallery Installation

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Grade 1 Learning Experience about Anti-Bias results in Community Interviews and a Gallery Installation

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In November, the grade one team at the Inter-Community School Zurich (ICSZ) embarked on an exciting journey to redesign a history unit. Working with Inspire Citizens, the team engaged in a generative process of ideation and planning that led to a vibrant outcome: Humans of ICSZ.

"We wanted to connect the present to the past through adults in the school that the students looked up to and wanted to know more about," explains Claire Febrey, ICSZ Curriculum Coordinator. "We wanted the students to get to know and celebrate our community, and make authentic connections with our community members."

The result? A powerful exhibition of photo portraits of community members (with photos taken by the students at a local photography studio), and a book about the community members' stories (written and designed by the students).

Sarah Turton, a grade 1 teacher, explains that the unit began with a read-aloud about an elderly woman's memories and artifacts connected to the past.

"The read-aloud was a great way to kick off the unit and our EAL teacher had a bunch of artifacts related to her grandparents that she brought in as a provocation. The students guessed what the artifacts were used for - things like an antique coffee grinder, a wooden board game and pencil box and old roller skates. They used a 'see, think, wonder' thinking routine and sorted the artifacts into categories of home, school and play or sports. All the interviewing and writing they did was based around those three topics as a result," says Sarah.

The students compared the artifacts with related objects today, and did some sketches and writing about those connections. They then identified who they wanted to interview in the community to learn about their experiences as children to learn more about home, school and play time from the past.

James Forsythe, another grade 1 teacher, says the students chose people ranging from teaching assistants at ICSZ to playground and cafeteria staff.

"The students learned about asking questions and they wrote three initial questions for their interviews, one for each category of home, school and play. Then they practiced creating follow-up questions and how to ask 'how and why' questions," says James.

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In November, the grade one team at the Inter-Community School Zurich (ICSZ) embarked on an exciting journey to redesign a history unit. Working with Inspire Citizens, the team engaged in a generative process of ideation and planning that led to a vibrant outcome: Humans of ICSZ.