Learners will participate in Service-Learning opportunities associated with veterans and community-wide celebrations such as Flag Day activities, and Veterans Day, Memorial Day and Fourth of July.

Instructor's Notes: It is important to obtain the necessary permission forms and signatures required by your school or school district before learners participate in the Service-Learning activity.

Service opportunities associated with veterans can be found by contacting local senior residences and assisted living centers in your community or neighboring community. You may contact the following web sites for information about service clubs addressing the needs of veterans:

Disabled American Veterans @ www.KWVA.org
American Legion National Headquarters @ www.legion.org
Korean War Veterans @ www.DAV.org
American Legion Auxiliary Department of Michigan @ http://www.legion-aux.org/
Viet Nam Veterans of American @ http://www.vietnamvets.org/directory/
Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) @ http://www.vfw.org/

Reflection:
Reflection activities should begin with the Anticipatory Set. What the learners expect to do and how they feel about what they are about to do are important start off questions which you may have your learners write about, draw about, or act out. Reflection should be on-going and allow the learners to reflect in several ways. Final reflection should include a personal evaluation and assessment of learning and affective behaviors. Journals, while excellent, should not be the only means of written reflection. Poems, video tapes or tape recordings, drawings, scrapbooks and posters are just a few of the possible reflective strategies. Disposable cameras, as well as digital camera photos, can be used to reflect on the activity. The instructor should also have the recipients of the service reflect on their experience. Parents and/or guardians also are important to the reflection piece. You may use a simple check-off form for the adults.

Celebration:
Invite parents to share in presentations of their activity in class. Present certificates of participation to parent partners.

Anticipatory Set:
Have a discussion on the U.S. flag, symbolism and colors. Ask if any one in the class knows of, or has had a member of their family, or friend of the family serve in the Armed Forces and share the learner's knowledge of that service to the nation. Discuss who veterans are. Compile a list for all to see of the conflicts learners can identify. (The instructor should make certain that the Gulf War [Desert Storm] and Afghanistan are included.) Group learners in three to four member groups and have them select a name from the list just compiled. Each group will study the conflict they picked. It is suggested that World War I not be assigned or selected. General discussion can include other wars as well, as each war is significant in the history of the Untied States.

 

• Assign or allow learners to select one military action which produced veterans of the United States. Each group is to research and develop a report to the class on their topic. The research should report the number of veterans resulting from the specific conflict. Suggest that students also make connections to the affect this war or conflict had on families, philanthropic acts that resulted, and the role of women and specific ethnic groups. Provide each group with a poster board to make a visual presentation along with their oral presentation. Research tools should include CDs, magazines, texts, articles and access to the Internet.
  
  
• Ask learners to participate in a Veterans' or Memorial Day activity with their parents. Learners will be given a list of VFW members or the local chapter's phone number, and asked to create cards for ten Veterans or more, and deliver or mail cards. Alternative service opportunities would be to:
• Visit a veteran in an assisted living center or senior residence, interview and write a biography of their experiences in a conflict.
  Interview a family member or friend and write their experiences in service to their country.
• Have student and parents share an activity that helps neighbor, community or friends in need.
  
  
• Have learners and parents work in class together on cards or gifts for veterans.
  
  
• Present the cards or gifts to the veterans as a celebratory activity.
  
  
• Once the activity is completed, introduce the term "community capital". Explain that it refers to "banked good will" that helps build trust between various groups within a community (for example, building a park together to serve various groups). Ask the learners to identify any community capital that was built during this unit and give examples. Are there any examples of good will that were exhibited by various groups during the project? Allow the learners to share. Should this project be continued to keep the amount of community capital between the school community, parents and veterans (or other groups) growing?

Parents and learners share in philanthropic activities at school and in the community.