How to live a good and useful life

1. How to live a good and useful life Community Project

2. Blinknow.org • http://blinknow.org/

3. Intellectual and Community Challenge • Goal: To investigate and experience how members of a community lead a good and useful life and create something that will better their school community and beyond • Project: Consider what problems or issues you see around you in your life in and around school. How do these issues or problems affect you or other students? Which ones do you think are most important? How can we improve the problem or issue, or, better yet, solve it? How can you make a positive and lasting change in your environment?

4. Steps • Step 1: As a class, brainstorm a list of issues, problems, concerns in your school community. • Step 2: Choose the one or two that you are most moved by. Which ones speak to you? • Step 3: On your own, develop a strategy, method, project, etc. that could help combat or solve this problem. This should be a one page write up you will deliver to the class. • Step 4: Share your proposal with the class.

5. Steps • Step 5: In a small group of 3-4 students from class, share, discuss, collaborate and write a formal proposal (the proposal may be an expanded version of and idea that an individual presented or a totally new idea) that will be graded. If you research and find support for your idea, include it. • Step 5: Each group will present their proposal to the class. • Step 6: The class will narrow down the proposals to one that will compete will all other English classes.

6. Steps • Step 7: A panel of English teachers will see presentations from all English classes and narrow the field to the top eight proposals. • Step 8: A panel made up of administration, parents and students will see the final eight proposals and choose one to implement.