Service Learning is a priority to help fulfill the School's mission of educating and graduating socially responsible citizens. The ability to take pressing community needs and combine it with curricular instruction leads to both effective learning outcomes and quality contributions to our communities. We believe that high quality service learning allows us to teach “the head” and “the heart.” Both are important in developing compassionate citizens and developing social responsibility in our students.
Service Learning is defined by the National Youth Leadership Council as “an approach to teaching and learning in which students use academic knowledge and skills to address genuine community needs.”
Picking up trash on a river bank is
service.
Studying water samples under a microscope is
learning.
When science students collect and analyze water samples, document their results, and present findings to a local pollution control agency to advocate for new laws -– that is
service learning!
Put another way, service learning is about the real world application of taking what is happening in the classroom and meeting a real world need in society, so that students can apply and practice classroom learning and our community can both benefit from and contribute to what is being learned by our students. Shorecrest works with our partners and values their knowledge as equal partners in service and learning.
With info from https://www.nylc.org/page/WhatisService-Learning