Students determine which community need they want to address with a service project. Once a priority need has been determined, they research related nonprofit organizations with a student-generated list of questions.

In this lesson, students dream big and envision what it would look like to have the problem solved. They discuss steps to take and what they need to learn in order to accomplish the task. They take personal responsibility for carrying out the expectations they set for the final service-learning project proposal. 

Students are introduced to philanthropy and service-learning. They learn about different needs in the community and community organizations that address these needs. Students are introduced to the full scope of the Project Based Learning (PBL) project. This unit follows the six steps of project based learning. Students establish the "Knows and Need to Knows" for the project. They make a problem statement that drives their service. 

A positive school or community climate is made up of people making choices about how to act and treat one another. It is everyone's responsibility to follow the established social contract. To make a deliberate social contract, participants identify how they want to act together and survey the whole school population to identify what is going well and what needs improvement.

Students analyze survey results, choose a community health need, and design a service project to address it.

Students explore what it means to be responsible citizens and identify ways they are (or can be) responsible at home, in school, and in the community. They create a survey related to people's perceptions of community health and poll members of the community to identify needs.

Students examine their personal healthy habits and their school (and neighborhood) environments to collect information about nutrition and fitness in the community. Students consider what changes they can make to the school or neighborhood to create a more healthful environment.