Home Program Service Learning
Impactful learning experiences happen when students leave campus to work alongside fellow community changemakers. Thanks to long standing relationships with local organizations, including other schools, non-profits, and volunteer groups, Park Day students gain first hand knowledge about the power of volunteering and social responsibility. By participating in service learning projects, students learn what it means to be active citizens within their society while broadening their sense of the world.
Kindergarten
Students learn about oak trees and their role within a watershed. Through our 10+ year partnership with EBMUD Watershed Stewardship Program, students collect acorns and raise oak saplings to plant in East Bay restoration areas.
1st Grade
Students get to know teenagers from Oakland International High School– an OUSD program for students who have recently immigrated to the US. We partner with their English classes and students develop relationships with each other as reading buddies, learning about each other and celebrating learning and literacy.
2nd Grade
Students learn how to actively support literacy in the wider community. Students lead a school-wide book drive each year for students in Oakland. Each year the students collect, sort and deliver over 1000 books.
3rd Grade
Students learn how to actively support healthy ecosystems. Through our partnerships with Golden Gate Audubon, East Bay Regional Parks and Save the Bay, students are in the field actively engaged in bird habitat restoration work, as well as advocacy work inside the classroom.
4th Grade
Students learn how to design and build something useful with a partner from another school. This partner build project is also a collaboration between the Mosaic Project, our Community Outreach and Service Learning program and the Design+Make+Engage program.
5th Grade
Students experience the positive impact their volunteerism has in the community. Students volunteer regularly at the Alameda Community Food Bank sorting fresh fruits and vegetables for various distribution sites.
6th Grade
Students learn how parks and green spaces contribute to a healthy community. Students help with park clean-up, playground equipment care and general stewardship of Frog Park in the Rockridge-Temescal greenbelt throughout the school year.
7th & 8th Grades
Students learn how they can actively support systems and organizations that help the larger community. Students volunteer at community partner sites including: Tandem, Partners in Early Learning, Sibley Volcanic Regional Preserve, CityTeam Oakland, Project Open Hand, and the Bay Area Maker Farm.
Every Park Day School grade participates in service learning programs that connect students to the world beyond our campus.