Highlands Elementary believes students can make a difference in the community.

With the help of an Idaho State Department of Education Learn and Serve Grant, Highlands Elementary students learn while being active citizens. Teachers and parents work together during the school year to teach some portion of the school curriculum through active community involvement.

The goals of service learning at Highlands Elementary are:

1. To have a program at Highlands Elementary where students have the opportunity and are encouraged to become active citizens in the community.
2. To develop students' civic and leadership skills with a theme of "Kids for Kids".
3. To build student values of respect, dignity, honesty, responsibility, and teamwork.
4. To maintain academic achievement as an active student body in the community.

Projects from 2006-2007:

The Mitten Tree - Kindergarten
Kindergarteners learned civic skills through books that taught them about caring for others. Through saving their allowance, our kindergarteners helped over 30 children at other schools have warm mittens in January. Our students learned math skills while totaling their savings.

I like my retired pen pal! - First Grade
It's hard work learning to write. Especially learning about topic and conclusion sentences (green!), reason details or facts (yellow!), and examples (red!). It's a lot easier when you have a pen pal. Our first graders really liked their pen pals. It was just like having another grandma or grandpa to talk with! Students wrote letters to retirees with the National Association of Retired and Senior Volunteers. These "grandma and grandpas" taught our first graders lots of lessons. Our students and retirees grew to really like and appreciate one another.

Love our foothills trails - clean up after your dogs! - Second Grade
Our school is nestled in the Boise Foothills. Staff from the nearby Foothills Learning Center told us that one of the major problems on our foothills trail system is the amount of dog poop left on the trails. So - our classes invented and made over 200 puppy poop pouches. We made them ourselves. Our 70 second graders even know how to grommet! One of our parents came in and shared their own patents with us, taught us how to keep an invention notebook, and showed us their official US patents. Incredible! We then took to the trails and educated dog owners - on a beautiful Saturday spring morning - about the importance of keeping our trails clean. Over 200 dogs in Boise now have puppy poop pouches of their own! Thanks to local businesses for their help: Wynn's Mill End Fabrics and Buck's Bags.

Reduce erosion - love our trails! - Second/Third Grade
The Foothills Learning Center also taught us that trail erosion is a major problem in our foothills. We wrote scripts and practiced and then hit the trails with our fellow students and taught over 100 trail users how not to erode our trails! The Boise Trail Rangers loved our work. They think we impacted the community more than any other effort they have had to stop erosion. They gave us a great certificate in thanks! We learned science lessons, public speaking, and writing skills in the process. It made us proud to help - and it was a little scary talking to people we did not know!

Special Olympics World Games coming to Boise in 2009!! - Third Grade
Our city is so fortunate to be looking forward to hosting the Special Olympics World Games in Boise in 2009. So - what are the Special Olympics? What is it like to be a Special Olympian? How can we help? Staff from the Special Olympics World Games came to our class and taught us about Special Olympics. One of our neighbors came in and talked to us about the games and showed us his medal. It was a little scary being around someone different from us... and we got used to it. Special Olympians are just like us - they just have to work a little harder. We wrote a book about their courage and what it takes to be a Special Olympian. Thanks to our local Parks and Recreation Department, we got to try out wheelchairs in our school, too. It's hard to get water from our fountains and the bathrooms are really tough to get into to! We attended the local regional Special Olympic games and cheered for the teams. Go Team Highlands!

Oral Idaho History with Highlands Historians - What was it like to be a kid in the 1930-1950's? - Third/Fourth Grade
What better way to learn Idaho History than to visit with the elderly people in our own neighborhood? The third and fourth graders learned history first hand from our neighbors. We visited the local Veterans Administration hospital and read books to our vets during the Holiday season. We visited with local Highlands neighbors who taught us what it was like to be a kids in earlier years. We designed artwork and wrote note cards about our neighbors. We sold these packets of note cards to our school body and raised money that we donated to the local Humane Society. It was our choice - the students - to learn history for service learning and we wanted to help the Humane Society somehow. We accomplished a lot in a year. Oh, by the way, we learned a lot of Idaho history, some new art techniques, and writing skills too - not to mention some great appreciation for our older neighbors. We know them now!

Stop Global Warming - Cool Boise! - Fourth Grade
Our teacher let us completely choose our own topic. Through class consensus, we chose Global Warming. Some people in our class did not believe in Global Warming. Others did. We understand that there are two sides to lots of issues. We do know that we can do a better job of caring for our earth, so we did lots of things. We sponsored a "Walk to School Day". We measured and graphed ways that kids got to school. We measured and reported how we improved. We even surveyed the entire school body to see how we can do a better job and how we're doing today with our local resources. We made a banner for Al Gore's Global Warming Conference in Boise. Our art work really made a difference. It's amazing how public art can express opinions. We think we helped our city just a little in our goal of being "Cool Boise!" Along the way we learned interview skills, math, graphing, art, and computer skills.

Plants to beautiful our school. Low water gardening! - Fifth/Sixth Grade
Many schools have to bring in portable buildings for their growing school population. Our school did too. We decided they would look alot better with some landscaping - and we wanted to care for our environment as well. So - we spent a year learning about low water gardening and plants that are native to Idaho. We built our own pathway system with the help of a grant from the Idaho Rivers Association. Our parents helped us a lot, too. We enjoyed accomplishing this together. We have gravel walkways to our buildings, native plants with signs to teach others, and even an Idaho state flower - syringa - donated by our Highlands Youth Advisory Council . It was a lot of work gardening and constructing this area. We think we all need to go to college to learn more!

Life lessons - do I appreciate what I have? What about people that are homeless? - Fifth Grade
Fifth grade is a great time to learn how to get ready for junior high. It's a great time to learn to appreciate what I have. Why do some people go hungry? Are they different than us? How can we help? Can one person make a difference? Our fifth graders learned a little about hunger and how to help this year. The class taught others in the school about hunger with the help of literature - and then organized a school wide canned food drive for Thanksgiving. Afterwards, the class took a field trip to the local rescue mission and made a difference by sorting foods, making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and folding laundry. We also designed a banner for the Mayor's First Livability Summit - that was focused on homelessness in our city. The mayor's office liked our public art banner so much that it is still hanging in their office!

Why do you leave a country and come to the US? How can we help new Americans learn about our country? - Sixth Grade
Sixth graders are challenged to learn areas of world history in their final year at Highlands. This sixth grade class called our local Agency for New Americans early in the year and asked them how they might help as refugees come to our city. The result was a year long learning experience. Sixth graders taught bicycle safety classes at an apartment complex that houses many refugees new to Boise. Refugee families returned to the class to teach our students why they came to our country and what they had left behind. The sixth grade class continued a year of activities with the Agency for New Americans. We even collected and donated over 30 gently used bikes to some refugee families!

Projects from 2005-2006:

The Mitten Tree - Kindergarten
Kindergarteners learned civic skills through books that taught them about caring for others. Through saving their allowance, our kindergarteners helped 20 children at another school have warm mittens in January.

Why Read? Can I help others read? - First Grade
It's hard work learning to read. The Literacy Lab came and taught our first graders what hard work it can be. Students learned more through books in class about why it's important to read. Students gathered over 250 books, brought them into class and wrapped them. The City Light Home visited Highlands to accept these books and taught our students that often women that do not learn to read drop out of school and stop learning. Students reflected that they "felt warm" helping others and that they wanted to stay in school, read, and keep learning through their entire lives.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle - a year long study - Second Grade
Many families commented after this year of active service learning that their families had become avid recyclers through the work of their second graders. Posters decorated the school, battery recycling packs were sent to 180 school families to encourage recycling, and art projects were made from recycled products. Thanks to the environmental education specialist at the City of Boise, our students helped others learn to recycle.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle - A Play entitled "The Dream" - Second/Third Grade
Have you ever had a bad dream where you woke up and the entire world hated recycling? Well, this class dreamt such a bad dream and in their play, convinces the world to recycle again with their research and knowledge of recycling.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle - a year long study - Third Grade
With the help of Western Recycling, this class experienced first hand how much waste is recycled in the City of Boise. After seeing mountains of plastic, newspaper, and cans, these third grade students spent the year incorporating recycled products into each and every art class. A recycled art project netted a significant amount at the Highlands School auction, helping to build a better school library in 2006-2007.

Oral Idaho History with our Idaho Veterans - What was it like to be a kid in the 1920-30's? - Fourth Grade
What better way to learn Idaho History than to visit our Idaho Veterans at the VA Center? The fourth graders learned from the Idaho Oral Historian, Troy Reeves, how to interview. Thanks to the school nurse, the students learned a little about aging - and what to expect when you're around people in their 90's. In two visits to the VA Center, students interviewed ten veterans and wrote fictional accounts about each - incorporating history and writing skills. The veterans were pleased with how much they taught our students.

Worm Bin Composting - How many leftovers do fourth/fifth graders leave at lunch? - Fourth/Fifth Grade
How many leftovers do fourth/fifth graders leave at lunch? Not much! That's what our class discovered as we explored ways to reduce waste. We learned to take our scraps from lunch and compost them in our worm bin. We shredded papers, calculated the number of worms we needed, and monitored the bin through two months. Plans for next year include expanding the project to other classes in the school as we learn to reduce our waste.

The Can-Do Thanksgiving - We Sorted Food! - Fifth Grade
Why do some people go hungry? Are they different than us? How can we help? Can one person make a difference? Our fifth graders learned a little about hunger and how to help this year. The class taught others in the school about hunger with the help of literature - and then organized a school wide canned food drive for Thanksgiving. Afterwards, the class took a field trip to the Salvation Army food distribution center where they made a difference by helping to sort the foods they had collected.

Why do you leave a country and come to the US? How can we help new Americans learn about our country? - Sixth Grade
Sixth graders are challenged to learn areas of world history in their final year at Highlands. This sixth grade class called our local Agency for New Americans early in the year and asked them how they might help as refugees come to our city. The result was a year long learning experience. Sixth graders hosted a Thanksgiving feast for families from Somalia, Bantu, Afghanistan, etc. - where they shared a little of their own knowledge. Refugee families returned to the class to teach our students why they came to our country and what they had left behind. The sixth grade class continued a year of activities with the Agency for New Americans.

A School Wide Fundraiser - Think Globally. Act Locally and Globally. - 2005-2006 School Wide Activities
Highlands students attended a presentation by Craig Kielburger, the founder of "Free the Children", an organization that supports children helping children internationally. Craig started "Free the Children" at the age of 12. Eleven years later, the organization has built over 400 schools in 35 countries. Craig challenged our students to "Be the Change," and to "be the generation that ends world hunger." Highlands students responded by raising almost $1000 to equip a classroom in Sierra Leona and $500 to start a Milk and Eggs fund for fresh food in Boise for families in transition.