By Ryan Casey
My favorite day of a thematic unit on volunteerism with my ninth graders is the day of their oral presentations. I love watching them pitch their ideas for volunteer projects (organizing a day to celebrate our custodians; cleaning up the trash on our campus) to their classmates, who are typically so impressed with each other they have a hard time voting for their favorite idea.
While watching their presentations a few years ago, however, I felt something was missing. What if students actually executed these projects instead of merely envisioning them?