The Community Database
Experiential Learning That Enhances Education and Builds Community

What: The community database is the infrastructure people in the 21st century will use to transfer information locally. If the Internet is the information highway, the community database is the local roadway. Experiential learning (often called "community-based learning") is a superior form of education because students approach their studies with more enthusiasm and retain information better when they realize that what they are doing is relevant to real life situations.

Why: There are unidentified resources in every community that are not reaching the needs. When students identify, organize and publicize these resources it becomes a learning experience involving students of all ages and cutting across many academic disciplines. Incidentally, the entire community benefits from the students' activities.

How: Students gather data and organize it into useful information following instructions, examples and forms provided by the Singer Foundation. The Foundation displays this information on the web where students and everyone in  the local community can have access to it.

The wishes of individuals and groups are part of the information gathered. These will be posted along with the number of volunteer hours required to make each wish come true. Community volunteers (after school hours and having nothing to do with school curriculum) will undertake jobs created earlier by students and staff at local public and private nonprofit organizations.

When: The Foundation currently has funds from a private donor to reward students and teachers in six communities if they agree to work with the Foundation to construct databases to be used as examples.

Please contact the Foundation for more details.    staff@singerfoundation.org

Click here to learn more about the Community Database Project

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