BRIDGING THE GAP

Grade Level: 3-5

Academic Areas: Language Arts, Social Studies

Duration of service: Semester-Long

Character Virtues: Respect, Civic Virtue and Citizenship

Service Areas: Human Services, Education/Tutoring

 

Service Learning Project:

After reading selected literature about intergenerational issues, realistic portraits of aging, and works by elderly authors, each student will be "paired" up with a local senior citizen in the community. A wide cross-section of seniors will be utilized, with some living in nursing homes, some in assisted living facilities, and some independently. Students will conduct interviews of their senior partner to gain information about the similarities and differences in the lives of the students and the elderly. Students will then each create a finished product to display the information they learned. Display options could include a display board, a collection of relevant objects with attached text, a photo album, or a story. The culminating event will be an exhibition opening (much like those held at art museums) where the students will share their information with their new "senior friends" and their classmates.

Goals and Objectives

Academic

Learning Goal: Students will interview and write about a senior citizen living in their community to learn what their life was like when they were the student’s age.

Standard: ELA Standard 1, 2, & 4

Learning Goal: Students will learn more about the history of their community by researching critical events that occurred during their senior citizen’s life.

Standard: Social Studies Standard # 1, 5,

Learning Goal: Students will develop a timeline of events that shaped their community.

Standard: Social Studies Standard # 1,5 MST Standard # 3

Service

Community need: Senior citizens need to feel they are valued members of our communities

Possible Community Partners: Community centers, senior citizens living in community, nursing homes, historical societies,

Objective: Students will work to bridge the gap that exists between themselves and the seniors living within their community by conducting interviews of local senior citizens.

Objective: Students will develop additional ways to continue their relationships with their senior citizens, including an exhibition opening night at which they salute their senior buddies.

Character

Virtue: Respect

Objective: Participants will gain a mutual respect for what each generation has to offer them

Virtue: Civic Virtue and Citizenship

Objective: Students will understand their responsibility to the seniors in their community.

Key Activities

Key Planning Activities

  1. Teachers will "pair" students with senior citizens in the community.
  2. The class will research and create a timeline that indicates significant events in history and refer to this when talking to their seniors.
  3. Students will prepare questions to use when they interview their senior partner and will practice interviewing each other.

 

Key Service Activities

  1. Students will use their questions to conduct interviews of seniors and will record the responses.
  2. Students will use the information gathered to create a presentation showing the comparison between their life and the life of their seniors. (i.e. book, PowerPoint, poster, pictures, photographs, stories, etc.)

Key Reflection Activities

  1. (oral – respect) Students will discuss how they feel about working with senior citizens. They will discuss their fears, trepidations, etc. and work with the teacher and relevant literature to dispel any stereotypes.
  2. (written – respect) Students will write a reflective contrasting poem in which they juxtapose the similarities and differences between themselves and their senior when the senior was their age.
  3. (performance) Students will act out typical daily scenarios both they and their senior pal might have faced when the same age and demonstrate how each would react (for example, how play time might be utilized, making a trip to the grocery store, etc.).

Celebration Activity

Students will host an opening exhibition at which all of their projects will be displayed. Seniors and parents will be invited to the opening to enjoy the exhibitions, ask questions of the students, and have refreshments and music that relate to the various eras represented. Parents and the local middle and high schools’ home and careers departments will be asked to provide the food.