Urban EdVenture Course by the Westminster Schools
- What are the communities I belong to, and how can I make a difference in my community?
- How can I be an effective team member?
- How do I respond with empathy to other human beings?
- What are the qualities of positive leadership?
- How do I resolve conflict and build consensus?
Author: Urban EdVenture Faculty at Westminster
Urban EdVenture was designed as a yearlong service-learning course for all students in the 5th grade. The course goals are to allow students to experience active citizenship and leadership; to empower them as agents of change in their community; and to provide them with a basic understanding of philanthropy, nonprofit organizations, and the needs of their community. The course experience is interconnected and scaffolded. Clear communication skills that were the focus during teamwork activities are highly useful as youth form working teams and when they listen to community partners during the final project phase. Experiential teaching methods help youth understand complex concepts such as scarcity and abundance of resources, seeing issues from a variety of perspectives, and barriers that exist for certain populations.
This course is easily modified for grades 5-8. Urban EdVenture was created in 2005 by Leitzel Schoen under the umbrella of the Wilbur and Hilda Glenn Institute for Philanthropy and Service Learning at The Westminster Schools. This curriculum was written by the Urban EdVenture faculty Stacy Chalmers, Meghan James, Emily Horne, Becky McKnight, and Nash Sultan. For questions, the Urban Ed contact is Stacy Chalmers at [email protected]
Before teaching the course, take this educator mini-course that prepares the educator for teaching and leading Urban EdVenture: Teaching Urban EdVenture: A Fifth-Grade Service-Learning Course
Discussion of the book The Three Questions guides youth to be aware of people and needs around them and the importance of service as a response to the needs of others.
Author: Urban EdVenture Faculty at Westminster
These activities help youth see the web of communities to which they belong and define what it means to be a member of a community.
Author: Urban EdVenture Faculty at Westminster
Using different approaches, the group develops a working understanding of the definition of philanthropy.
Author: Urban EdVenture Faculty
Many people have a difficult time distinguishing between acts of kindness and acts of philanthropy. Using the definition of philanthropy from the “Defining Philanthropy” lesson, youth will examine various situations and decide which ones are acts of philanthropy. They may discover that empathy is at the heart of both actions.
Author: Urban EdVenture Faculty
Community members share stories of experiences in philanthropy.
Author: Urban EdVenture Faculty
Play matching games on teams to gain familiarity with terms associated with philanthropy.
Author: Urban EdVenture Faculty
Youth research and report back to the group about the nonprofit organizations that are serving their community and the many facets of community life that nonprofits are involved in.
Author: Urban EdVenture Faculty
To have students partner with a nonprofit organization to design and complete a service-learning project for that organization.
In the third trimester of the Urban EdVenture course, students begin work on the final project in collaboration with their homeroom teachers. Each class establishes a partnership with a nonprofit organization and works with that organization to determine the best way the class can serve. Partners and classes connect with one another through phone calls, emails, video conferencing, and site visits. The project culminates with a day-long hands-on service opportunity, a full day of project work on campus, and an on-campus event open to the public in which students share their work while advocating for their partner organization or cause.
Author: Urban EdVenture Faculty at Westminster
To have students identify the things that are important in their lives as a means of finding a “passion” or “passions” the class holds in common. Students will then identify causes that deal with an issue related to their shared passion. This will guide the teacher in selecting and promoting potential community partners for the Urban EdVenture Final Project.
To identify the qualities students see in effective leaders and create a life-size picture of a good leader emphasizing the body parts that represent those qualities.
Author: Urban EdVenture Faculty
We work on communication and listening skills while designing and building simple objects. This helps us think about the power of words and how difficult it can be to get a message across to another person without it being lost in translation.
Author: Urban EdVenture Faculty
To work together, see the big picture, and think about the connection between individuals in the group as students participate in the activity.
Author: Urban EdVenture Faculty
To focus on sharing ideas, creating and following through on a plan, and being responsible for one’s role in a group. In addition, River Crossing can have multiple rounds to draw out or focus on key terms. This activity is often used to help frame the ideas around planning a service learning project.
Author: Urban EdVenture Faculty
To accomplish a goal together through the use of teamwork skills, problem solving, risk taking and perseverance.
Turnstile is a problem solving activity that gets many students out of their comfort zone. Although it looks like a simple jump rope activity at first, students quickly learn that they need to rely on one another’s strengths and skills to make it through. It is very rare for a group to easily breeze through the three rounds listed below. The group must practice perseverance and teamwork in order to succeed.
Author: Urban EdVenture Faculty
To have students go through an experience that mimics the multiple steps and importance of clear communication between parties necessary in planning and carrying out a service learning project.
Our classes do “The Beast” game as we prepare for our grade-wide service learning projects. This activity is one of the most complex problem solving initiatives we use. It builds on the foundations learned in previous activities and should come near the end of the course.
Author: Urban EdVenture Faculty
To show students that everyone is part of the big picture and that the skills needed to take care of a small community of individuals are similar to those needed to care for a larger community.
This activity can be done at different times throughout the course, each time adding more people to the circle. As one of the closing activities for Urban EdVenture, we do a giant yurt circle with the entire 5th grade, each person playing a role in supporting their neighbor and their grade as a whole.
Author: Urban EdVenture Faculty
To provide an opportunity for students who can maintain a vision of a goal their group has to achieve, to show leadership and coach their group members towards the goal. Helium Hoop also creates a space in which leaders can learn to sense the energy of a group. Often times, a group will face conflict when they are in the middle of a project. We use this activity to help the students name that conflict and move forward.
Author: Urban EdVenture Faculty