This section of Expository Writing provides the opportunity for students- as readers, viewers, writers and speakers - to engage with social and ethical issues that they care deeply about. Through discussing selected documentary and feature films and the writings of such authors as Maya Angelou, Robert Coles, Charles Dickens, Barbara Ehrenreich, Martin Luther King, Jr., Jonathan Kozol, and Alice Walker, we will explore different perspectives on a range of social problems such as poverty, homelessness, and racial and gender inequality. In assigned essays, students will have the opportunity to write about social and ethical issues of their own choice. This course aims to help students to grow significantly in their ability to understand and grapple with arguments, to integrate secondary print and visual sources and to craft well-reasoned and elegant essays. Students will also keep a reader-writer notebook and give at least one oral presentation. In class we will discuss assigned films and readings, explore strategies for successful academic writing,freewrite and critique one another's essays. Satisfies Phase I and CI Writing Requirements.

This section of Expository Writing provides the opportunity for students- as readers, viewers, writers and speakers - to engage with social and ethical issues that they care deeply about. Through discussing selected documentary and feature films and the writings of such authors as Maya Angelou, Robert Coles, Charles Dickens, Barbara Ehrenreich, Martin Luther King, Jr., Jonathan Kozol, and Alice Walker, we will explore different perspectives on a range of social problems such as poverty, homelessness, and racial and gender inequality. In assigned essays, students will have the opportunity to write about social and ethical issues of their own choice. This course aims to help students to grow significantly in their ability to understand and grapple with arguments, to integrate secondary print and visual sources and to craft well-reasoned and elegant essays. Students will also keep a reader-writer notebook and give at least one oral presentation. In class we will discuss assigned films and readings, explore strategies for successful academic writing,freewrite and critique one another's essays. Satisfies Phase I and CI Writing Requirements.

Why are things in nature shaped the way they are? How do birds fly? Why do bird nests look the way they do? How do woodpeckers peck? These are the types of questions Dr. Lorna Gibson's freshman seminar at MIT has been investigating. We invite you to explore with us. Questions such as these are the subject of biomimetic research. When engineers copy the shapes found in nature we call it Biomimetics. The word biomimic comes from bio, as in biology and mimetic, which means to copy. Join us as we explore and look for answers to why similar shapes occur in so many natural things and how physics change the shape of nature.

Are you interested in investigating how nature engineers itself? How engineers copy the shapes found in nature ("biomimetics")? This Freshman Seminar investigates why similar shapes occur in so many natural things and how physics changes the shape of nature. Why are things in nature shaped the way they are? How do birds fly? Why do bird nests look the way they do? How do woodpeckers peck? Why can't trees grow taller than they are? Why is grass skinny and hollow? What is the wood science behind musical instruments? Questions such as these are the subject of biomimetic research and they have been the focus of investigation in this course for the past three years.

This project combines extended inquiry w/service learning. Students learn about environmental sampling, soil and water in particular, by investigating a site within the community. Data collected by the students provides useful information to the community partner to aid in the development of the site for community gardens.

A principal objective of the MSU semester-long study abroad program in Peru entitled Community Engagement and Interdisciplinary Study of Global Issues in the Peruvian Highlands

This module is designed to introduce professional school counselors, educational leaders, and counselor educators to current research in service-learning and its potential impact on school counseling programs and student achievement. Examples of how school counselors are using service-learning in their comprehensive guidance programs and how counselor educators are using service-learning in pre-service training are also provided. The new vision for professional school counselors broadens the traditional view to include program development, management, and evaluation. Service-learning is one type of programming that can provide hard data regarding the impact of the program on student success and that can elevate the professional school counselors to leadership positions in schools.