EARTHQUAKE EDUCATION AND PREPAREDNESS: AN EXAMPLE OF SERVICE-LEARNING AT SHORELINE COMMUNITY COLLEGE, SHORELINE, WASHINGTON

Shoreline Community College (SCC) integrates Service-Learning in the curriculum of Humanities, Social Science, and Sciences courses. Community colleges are a natural fit for service-learning due to their close ties to the local community, making partnerships meaningful and long-lasting. SCC provides service-learning professional development opportunities for faculty and has a service-learning coordinator who facilitates connections between faculty, students and community organizations.

Service-learning in science courses at SCC is dominantly project-oriented with specific learning and service objectives. This model is best suited for content-based courses, allows for stronger ties between curriculum and service, and lends itself to more objective assessment.

The Earthquake Preparedness Project is conducted in an introductory-level Geologic Hazards class. Students work in groups to design and implement an activity that not only educates a local community group about Pacific Northwest earthquakes but also increases its earthquake preparation and decreases its vulnerability. The activity is audience-specific and is tailored to meet the needs and resources of the specific community partner. Students are free to choose from a variety of organizations such as schools, retirement homes, youth groups and businesses. Activities vary depending on the nature of the organization but most projects involve multi-media presentations and hands-on earthquakes preparedness activities. Local partners who have been involved in these projects include an assisted living senior facility, the child care center at SCC, a YMCA after-school program and several elementary schools. In recent projects students created PowerPoint presentations, poster displays, and educational games for children; participated in panel discussions, assessed current earthquake preparedness of facilities, reviewed, edited and even wrote earthquake/disasters plans. Assessment and in-class reflection activities reveal that, despite logistical and time-management challenges, student’s learning was enhanced by these projects. Students report that working on these projects allowed them to apply and deepen their classroom learning and felt satisfaction for being able to provide a useful service to their local communities.