Iowa State University • Service Learning • www.celt.iastate.edu/ServiceLearning/
Iowa State University

Service Learning

Learning Communities

Iowa State University has over 80 learning communities and several of them incorporate service-learning into their programs. 

Learning communities and service-learning are a natural connection for several reasons:

Restructures teaching & learning

Both methods allow students to make connections in order to deepen their learning

Reconsiders who learns from whom

Both methods allow for multiple perspectives on the same topic by viewing through different lenses

Thinks about community intentionally

Both methods inspire collaboration between students and the larger community

Prepares students for a diverse democracy

Both methods help student extend their comfort zones and see their connection to the larger community.

[Modified from National Learning Communities Project Monograph Series.  (date unknown).  “Integrating Learning Communities with Service-Learning.”  American Association of Higher Education.]

Some of the learning community service-learning projects include

Food Science and Human Nutrition First Year

Food Science and Human Nutrition Transfer

Horticulture

Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers Learning Community

Psychology

Skunk River Navy (Biology Education Success Teams)
Participants take water samples of the river and test the quality, plant native species and clean debris out of part of the Skunk River near Ames

For more information about Learning Communities at Iowa State University, please visit the Learning Communities website.