Using Your Community as a Learning Resource This web site is for teachers and parents to use with their students and children to encourage the study of their community and to teach them how they can become involved citizens. Goals: Students will be able to use their community resources to affect change within their community. Objectives: Students will be able to define what a community is. Students will be able to identify the different aspects/resources of their community. Students will be able to identify people within the community. Students will be able to research topics using the various resources in their community. Students will be able to write and present research effectively. Background Information: The world is a very large place. Sometimes we feel insignificant because it is so big. We feel that nothing we can do will make a difference. Children feel this way even more. They can't drive or vote or even make decisions about their own lives. Adults make most of the decisions for them. Being young does not necessarily mean being without responsibility. Children are very concerned about the world they live in. They want to take part in making their world a better place for themselves and others. Starting in their own communities children can learn how to participate in society and what it means to be a good citizen. Teachers can find many untapped resources right in their own community, whether large or small. This web site will show how teachers can teach about their own community, what makes it a community, and what the students can do to participate in the life of the community. You will find background information, lesson plans, and parent extension activities to help your study of community issues. This web site features a problem solving structure to teach students how to solve the problems in their individual communities. You can follow the unit from the beginning or pick and choose lesson plans as needed. This unit will teach students about using their community by solving real life problems they choose for themselves. Because they are deciding what is important to them and making choices about what to become involved in they will be more interested and involved. Community Resources. The following is a list of community resources that the students might discover as they look at their community. It is preferable that the students discover these on their own but the you may find it necessary to point them in the right direction. This is certainly not a definitive list. Your own individual community may or may not contain what is listed. 1. Libraries 2. Museums 3. Newspapers 4. Businesses a. Stores b. Banks c. Restaurants d. Service businesses. 5. Government. a. Courthouse b. Post Office c. Police Station d. Parks e. Chamber of Commerce 6. Volunteer Organizations a. Red Cross b. United Way c. Boy and Girl Scouts 7. People in Community a. Hobbyists b. Neighbors This unit is separated into 3 sections. The first and second sections are preliminary lesson plans and the last is a problem based learning activity. The first part contains lesson plans that will teach students about the physical aspects of their community; schools, parks, businesses, landmarks, etc. The second section contains lesson plans about the different cultures in the community. The third section is the part of the unit which directs students in a problem based learning situation where they choose a topic or issue from their own community and use their community resources to come up with a solution. Section 1. What is a community? Section 2. Who lives in your community? Section 3. Taking part in your community. *The lesson plans on this web site were adapted from: Walk Around the Block by the Center for Understanding the Built Environment, 1992; Lesson Plans and Resources for Social Studies [http://www.csun.edu/~hcedu013/plans.html] The Kids Guide to Social Action by Barbara A. Lewis My Backyard History Book by David Wietzman

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