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Health and Safety Service-Learning Project Ideas

There are many ways service-learning activities can help promote Health and Safety education.

Here are a few examples:

Unite for Sight
Get involved with Unite For Site! This is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that empowers communities worldwide to improve eye health and eliminate preventable blindness. The Unite for Sight website, www.uniteforsight.org/teens, empowers and educates youth to become involved in the nonprofit organization by starting an eyeglass drive, raising funds for sight-restoring cataract surgeries in developing countries, and starting a chapter of Unite For Sight at their school.

Recreation Guide
Students can create a Recreation Guide for their community! This guide can highlight all the recreational areas and what activities can occur at each site. Such a brochure would introduce the community to the best and safest places to jog, hike, swim, bike, power walk, etc. It could also highlight free or low-cost exercise classes at a local community center, such as yoga, aerobics, swimming lessons, weight lifting, etc.

Nutrition Newsletter
A Nutrition Newsletter would be very beneficial to senior citizens, young mothers, etc. Students could gather healthy recipes, ask physicians and nurses to write articles, and even review the latest nutrition books and websites. This newsletter could be distributed by the Food Bank, the community center, local medical clinics and doctor's offices, and any of the recreation or senior citizen centers in the community.

First-Aid Drive
Students can organize a community first-aid drive, collecting first-aid supplies. Students could research what items are necessary and cost-effective for a basic first-aid kit, and then they could create flyers, posters, etc. to alert the community about the collection. Once all the first-aid products are collected, students could then create first-aid kits for the local homeless shelters to distribute.

Smoke alarms and Carbon Monoxide detectors are only good if the batteries that are in them are working! After researching the statistics of local deaths that could have been prevented if the home or building had a smoke alarm or carbon monoxide detector, students could assist the local fire department with their effort to promote the use of these safety devices. Students could visit shut-ins serviced by Meals-on-Wheels to make sure that they have a smoke alarm and/or carbon monoxide detector and know how to change the battery in each device. Students could also research the many different brands of smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors in order to do a cost-analysis of these devices. Students could publish their findings via a community newsletter, website or local paper.

Grant Opportunities provide additional project ideas >>