In response to requests for assistance from a Tibetan refugee community in Mainpat, India, Northern Arizona University developed a unique service-learning experience, the Mainpat Project, to provide health and other services. The project continued for 4 years despite the limited infrastructure and resources of a small public university and the…

The EPICS Program was created in 1995 with the dual purposes of improving engineering education and addressing compelling needs within our communities. The model broke with many traditional academic traditions, involving students in multidisciplinary teams of students from first-year to fourth years for multiple semesters or even years on projects…

Applied community learning experiences for university students are promising endeavors in downtown urban environments. Past research is applied to help better comprehend a community engagement initiative conducted in downtown Phoenix, Arizona. The initiative aimed to illuminate the socio-cultural diversity of the downtown area utilizing…

The purpose of this article is to contribute to the growing body of research that focuses on best practices for environmental sustainability education in K-12 classrooms. A review of related literature included emerging trends, commitment by business leaders to engage in CSR activities in the community, and opportunities for education at the K-12…

One of the major issues confronting education in Arizona and across the United States has been the consistent low performance of culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students in comparison to their peers as evidenced by the disparity of the achievement gap at every level in the educational pipeline. A contributing factor has been the lack…

Green issues such as protecting environmental rights and promoting sustainability are growing in importance to social work practice but are largely ignored in social work curricula. This article uses comparative case studies of three student-led community practice projects to demonstrate how environmental rights can be incorporated into social…

There are countless justifications for why young adults, faced with so many distractions, do not complete their educations. Many students fail to finish college because of a lack of information and understanding about healthy relationships and sex education. The author's own struggles and eventual successes as a student and mother compelled her to…

Purpose--Academic sustainability programs aim to develop key competencies in sustainability, including problem-solving skills and the ability to collaborate successfully with experts and stakeholders. These key competencies may be most fully developed in new teaching and learning situations. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the kind of, and…

Based on the premise that school reform efforts must consider the needs of at-risk children, this paper discusses parallel reform efforts that focus on community service. The first part discusses logical linkages between community service and "at-risk" education and describes how Arizona is attempting to formalize these linkages within…

Arizona's Serve-America Project is a K-12 community service program funded by the National and Community Service Act of 1990. Through formal school/community agency and youth organization/community agency partnerships, the project is designed to: (1) encourage school-age and out-of-school youth to volunteer their services; (2) increase the number…

America's prairie land is under economic and ecological stress. Acting on the belief that rural schools can help revitalize their communities when schools' activities are related to the places where they are located, schools in Arizona, Kansas, and Nebraska are integrating prairie studies across the K-12 curricula. With the help of area…