In response to an activity involving unfair distribution of food, students explore what can be done to address the issue of child hunger in the United States. They conduct an investigation of hunger in the local community. Students join with a nonprofit organization and take action to address the issue of child hunger using the theme of "What Will You Bring to the Table?"

Focus Question: What is our responsibility to take action for the sake of children who are hungry?

Students build on their understanding about homelessness, seeking to discover the actual facts and statistics about homelessness locally and nationally.

Students examine their preconceptions about homelessness and build understanding of homelessness.

Students engage in a variety of activities that teach the value of budgeting and fundraising. They will investigate the concept of enlightened self-interest and how that correlates to good time and money management and civic engagement.

The students will engage in activities to examine how they make use of their time, make an action plan, and create a to-do list to improve upon their own time management.

Students explore identity traits through some reflection and discussion activities. They discuss how a community is strengthened by similarities and differences among them. Each student writes a biographical poem using the provided template and their discussion notes. 

In this lesson, students learn to identify bullying behavior using two literature books, Mr. Lincoln's Way and The Secret Bully.  They compare and contrast two examples of bullying behavior portrayed in the books and create a peer/staff/family survey to research bullying behavior in their own school community.

Learners role-play responses to bullying behavior and start to brainstorm ways to promote kind behaviors at school and decrease bullying behaviors.

Students brainstorm the elements that make an effective service-learning project. They discuss the important elements and take responsibility for making sure these are carried out in the final project. They review the rubric and discuss expectations for a presentation of a 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. They establish the "Knows and Need to Knows" for the project.