Celebrating Learning That Matters:
Students and Educators Convene at Regional Summit at UNH, Durham Campus
Focus on Climate Change and Other Environmental Issues
- Hundreds of New England students share community problem-solving experiences
- Cameron Wake, UNH, keynotes the Summit at 1:35 pm Tuesday, May 25
- Great photo ops of K-12 students start at 2 pm Tuesday, Memorial Union Building
Durham, NH—Hundreds of K-12 students from across New England will gather at the University of New Hampshire, Durham Campus, May 25-26, 2010, for the 10th annual KIDS Consortium Student Summit on Service-Learning. They will celebrate their work solving real problems faced by their schools and communities through service-learning, a teaching method that links community projects with academic studies. The event’s theme, “Green Thumbs” Up for Green Schools, is part of a Green Schools initiative that also funded 35 mini-grants awarded to New England schools.
Attendees will come from more than 30 schools across Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont to this unique event to share their results and ideas for future work. The Summit’s reach expands each year. The 2010 Summit will mark the first time that New York schools have participated.
From elementary students who established a school-wide composting program, to middle school students who worked to reduce invasive species in a local wetland, to high school students who started a school garden, youth teams throughout New England have made their schools and communities more environmentally sustainable. These student teams will all give oral presentations and display exhibits at the Green Schools Student Summit this year.
Through these service-learning projects and the opportunity to present at the Student Summit, youth learn to be communicators, problem-solvers and active members of their community. This year, major corporate sponsors are State Farm Insurance and Downeast Energy.
“It’s exciting to see so many young people thinking about the environment and engaged in driving positive action to make their schools greener. These young leaders are not just our future—they’re also our present,” said Marvin Rosenblum, founder of KIDS Consortium.
Seventh and eighth grade students at Lisbon Central School in Lisbon, Conn., have been planning the Summit throughout the school year as one of their own service-learning projects, with KIDS Consortium as their community partner.
The event’s Green Schools theme encourages participants to work together to make their schools and communities more environmentally friendly. The keynote speaker, Cameron Wake, is a research associate professor with the Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space at UNH. He will speak about climate and environmental change and how the actions of individuals can make a difference. Using this theme, students and educators at the Summit will have fun showcasing their work, reflecting on their experiences and learning new skills.
KIDS Consortium, based in Auburn, Me., works with teachers, administrators and students to involve students in addressing real challenges faced by their communities. Through service-learning, students identify, research and work to address local community needs. With guidance from KIDS, teachers match those projects to school curricula, providing a powerful hands-on learning experience that improves the community and brings academics to life. For more information, visit www.kidsconsortium.org.
In addition to State Farm and Downeast Energy, grants from Hannaford, Wheelabrator, Walmart, Kennebunk Savings Bank, UBS, Poland Spring Water, the Horizon Foundation, the Sam L. Cohen Foundation, L.L. Bean, United Way of York County, Lee Auto Malls, R. H. Reny, Inc., and the Learn and Serve America Program at the Corporation for National and Community Service make this year’s Green Schools Summit possible.