Here are some ideas for service learning projects in these areas:
- Landfills and how they affect property value
- Lack of city water and sewer issues in undeveloped land
- How economic, kinship, political and religious systems, personality development and cultural change is studies
- Role of minorities/feminism in our community or role of ethnicity in society
- Identify and discuss an international diaspora in our community
- Effect of AIDS/HIV in our region
- Rate of birth control usage in our region
- Burial rituals in our city
- Collective memory of senior citizens on technology, civil rights, or culture
- Author an essay that conveys a chosen organization or agency's mission, programs, or clients to the community
- Profile area social service agencies examining issues of local and national concern (racism, sexism, homelessness, crime, violence) in a work of short fiction, poetry, the essay, and/or drama
- Author public relations submissions for the local newspaper on a topic of local, social interest
- Draft of speech for a local politician
- Write a technical guide for a campus unit to explain a particularly difficult process or procedure
- Work with a marketing class to prepare a brand message and an advertisement for a new product or to assist in branding the college or university on social media
- Manage the unskilled labor pool
- Find solutions to overcrowding in schools
- Develop a program to help women re-enter the workforce and solicit the donation of professional clothing
- Study and rank the social injustices in your community
- Investigate a social problem and develop solutions (racism/national origin, sexism, ageism, gender, sexual orientation, homophobia, discrimination)
- Study how rural communities can better adapt to high numbers of immigrants
- Research ways to encourage better school attendance
- Analyze social implications of the proposed projects for the city
- Develop a profile of social stratification adn social class in your community
- Discuss and identify local examples of social mobility in your community
- Study why people are in prison for drug addiction and poverty-related crimes
- Develop alternatives to incarceration
- Discuss and identify the need for a better public transportation system
- Tutor immigrants to improve language fluency
- Define and explain the concepts of communication, language, competence, performance, acquisition, learning, communication climate, or multiculturalism
- Educate key stakeholders of lead contamination risks
- Visit serveral production and manufacturing organizations and develop a paper describing how chemistry is used in local industry and what skills are needed for employment in this area
- Develop strategies and technology for planners to assist community-based organizations in their struggles for environmental and economic justice
- Produce webpages presenting community-defined environmental areas
- Investigate cultural or economic obstacles inhibiting involvement in community environmental action projects
- Groundwater contamination
- Study solar domestic hot water systems for low income housing
- Identify the various agencies responsible for water management and show how their decisions are integrated into activities of people within the city or region
Source: Rutti, R. M., LaBonte, J., Helms, M. M., Hervani, A. A., & Sarkarat, S. (2016). The service learning projects: Stakeholder benefits and potential class topics. Education & Training, 58(4), 422-438. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/ET-06-2015-0050
