At PPHS, we believe that we aren’t just a place for students to learn, but a part of the community we serve. Not only do our students have the opportunity to pursue work-based learning in their community, but we also partner with local businesses to complete industry challenges, which prepare our students to tackle the real-world challenges facing our community today. While our focus on big challenges like conserving the natural environment or improving our ability to feed a growing population is crucial to the future, we also recognize the importance of solving challenges on a community level as well. That’s why PPHS implemented Service Learning Day.
Service Learning Day was created with the intention of getting students out of the classroom and into the real world. On Service Learning Day (SLD) students are encouraged to either complete a job-shadow or volunteer in their community. This year, we knew the COVID-19 pandemic might make it difficult for our students to fulfill their SLD commitment, but we know how important this work is, especially due to the increased demand on our community centers, food banks, and shelters due to the pandemic. We were thrilled to see how our students chose to give back. While students are provided ideas and suggestions for how they might volunteer in the community, our students all sought out and secured their own volunteer opportunities.
Devon, a 10th-grade student at our Indianapolis North campus decided to spend his day making sure people in need had groceries. Devon knew that people in his community were suffering from joblessness and lack of resources, and that especially hard hit was the elderly population who are most at-risk for severe complications of COVID-19. Devon masked-up and packed bags of groceries at a local food bank. Working with his family, he delivered them to at-risk people living in his community.
Service Learning Day is not only an opportunity for PPHS to give back to our neighbors, but also an opportunity for our students to put the skills they learn at school into practice. Rather than only focusing on state standards, PPHS students are also graded on their “Competencies” which include skills from time management to personal accountability. These competencies are designed to be graded through projects, internships, work-based learning, and outside of school experiences like Service Learning Day.
This year, our students tackled projects including volunteering at local food banks, job shadowing engineers, and tutoring younger students who are eLearning. We are so proud of the work our Techies have done within their community and are looking forward to Spring SLD in 2021!
If you have a project you would like to suggest for our Spring Service Learning Day please email admissons@pphs.purdue.edu.
Published on 12/18/2020