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Spectacular Shells
Allison Hobson, Jasmine Bjorn, KeiLissa Bailey, and Ethan Gau
For our Marine Conservation and Restoration course, we designed an interactive lesson on marine life for first graders, focusing on animals that use shells. Our project features a presentation introducing shell-bearing animals such as mollusks, hermit crabs, and sea turtles. Students then engage in a game of Simon Says to identify shell adaptations. Following this, we led three hands-on activities: creating a pet oyster, making a sea turtle backpack with paper scutes, and coloring shells to add to a classroom poster. These activities encourage creativity and emphasize the role of shells in marine ecosystems. This immersive approach aims to foster young students’ appreciation of marine life and inspire future conservation efforts.
Through this experience, we had the opportunity to improve our science communication skills and inspire the next generation to care for marine ecosystems and organisms.
We hope you enjoy our project!
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Empowering Lives : the positive impact of OCA’s Arts, and Education Programs
Robert D. Hoel Jr
The purpose of this project is to explore how the Opportunity, Community, Ability (OCA) organization impacts the lives of individuals with a range of special needs, helping them develop new skills and strengthen those they may struggle to master. My primary approach involves direct communication with the director and volunteering at OCA events over the coming months. This firsthand experience allows me to observe the organization’s impact on its community. Specifically, I chose to volunteer with OCA’s Running Man Theater Program, as theater holds a special place in my heart, and I feel it’s where I can make the most meaningful impact. Through my involvement, I’ve witnessed the staff’s genuine care and belief in each student’s potential, and their commitment to empowering them for success. This project aims to showcase OCA’s remarkable contributions and highlight the transformative work they are doing in the community.
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There's No Place like UCP Central Florida!
Tamar Isidor and Natalya Sparrow
Well hello there! This project focuses on two university students volunteering at a charter school that focuses on inclusivity, giving students with special needs a chance to fulfill their education like everyone else. Learning from a course called Leadership Through Service: An Advanced Leadership Experience (LDR 3215), Tamar Isidor and Natalya Sparrow used what they've learned in class and applied it to an educational field that can be practiced.
As both students volunteered, they developed skills such as patience and quick problem-solving. They also learned the importance of cooperating with teachers and administrators to see the connection between every worker's role and how it impacts students' learning.
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Is America Really Free? A Bookend
Cyenna Ison, Wes Sumner, Emily Reese, Lexine Lewis, and Isabella Gonzalez
The purpose of our project was to create an Issue Guide on the topic "Is America Really Free?" to find solutions for the problems that would make America less free. Our group specifically dived into writing the introduction and conclusion of our class project. We overviewed the different options to creating a freer version of America and then summarized the entire thing. We also learned about the seven C's and enacted and espoused values of the organization National Issues Forum Institute (NIFI) which we worked with closely with to create this Issue Guide.
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Paralysis Rehabilitation at NextStep Orlando
Ben John
My project at NextStep Orlando was to support the rehabilitation of individuals living with paralysis, aiding them in achieving improved mobility and quality of life. Paralysis affects 1.7% of the U.S. population, profoundly changing the lives of those impacted. At NextStep Orlando, we focused on helping clients maintain physical activity, prevent muscle atrophy, and foster a sense of independence. My key activities included assisting clients with rehabilitative exercises, which targeted muscle tone and enhanced mobility. These exercises allowed clients to feel more in control and hopeful about potential physical improvements, with some projected to walk again with consistent effort.
One key lesson I learned was the importance of empathy and patience when working with people who face significant physical challenges. Additionally, I observed the transformative impact of community-driven support, as small changes in physical ability often had positive effects on clients’ mental well-being. This experience deepened my appreciation for civic responsibility and the potential of rehabilitation to bring about positive change in people’s lives.
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Octopus Engagement: Educating Through Involvement
Kaylee J. Kasper, Jordan Perrault, Erich Geiger, and Jasmine Brown-Eder
The purpose of our project is to showcase our group presentation that we arranged as a part of our Marine Conservation and Restoration course. We went to Goldsboro Elementary School to visit a class of third-grade students in their science class. As a group, we shared what we knew about octopuses so they could take a step into the world of marine biology. Our presentation consisted of fascinating facts and fun visual aids that captivated the students and allowed them to form a deeper connection with the octopus. To enhance their learning, we organized four fun activities, one being a spin on simon says called “octopus says”, another being an octopus scavenger hunt, while also personalizing an octopus tentacle to attach to a classroom poster. Finally, each of them created their own octopus hat. A pre and post-test was also completed to see what the students took away from our presentation. Overall, this experience highlighted the importance of interactive learning and inspiring young minds in the classroom.
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A Gift for Teaching
Ella Kassis, Ranica Zaydvarg, and Renata Silva
Our service-learning project involved volunteering at A Gift for Teaching in Orlando, Florida. A Gift for Teaching is a nonprofit organization with the goal of providing free school supplies to underfunded schools and teachers. We assisted in sorting through donated supplies, such as pencils, notebooks, art materials, and other resources, and preparing them for distribution to local teachers and schools. By working with this organization, we were able to support teachers and students within our community, helping to provide students with the learning experience they deserve
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Reforming Public Institutions to Ensure Fairness and Opportunity
Ryan P. Kaufman, Nolan J. Loch, Kim Nguyen, Katie S. Weinstock, and Parnika Chintapalli
By creating an issue guide, we are able to express our concerns and suggestions for what opportunities there are to address this issue. With a topic about America impacting almost everyone who views the guide, there is going to be someone that learns about how they can potentially make an impact in their community. As a class, we divided each section of the guide into a different group, this way each group was able to do more focused research. We created research papers and created drats to be assembled into the finished product. We learned that these are experiences that are experienced throughout the country, and we have the ability to make changes that are beneficial and long lasting.
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Respect and Protect- Education About the Realities of Sexual Battery
Connor N. Kirkland and Axani Turin
Our project focused on raising awareness among UCF students about sexual battery. We collaborated with Detective Becker from UCFPD to gather insights and created educational flyers. The flyers were distributed to inform students about preventive measures, appropriate responses to incidents, and the support available through UCFPD and Title IX.
By sharing this information, we aimed to empower students with the knowledge to protect themselves and others. We emphasized that while victims are never to blame, understanding preventive strategies can help reduce the risk of sexual battery. Our efforts highlighted the collaborative and individual roles of UCFPD and Title IX in ensuring justice and support for victims.
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The Special Olympics Florida: A Service Learning Experience
Brooke M. Leggiero
In serving with the Special Olympics Florida to provide sports and training to athletes with intellectual dissabilities, there were three key insights learned. The first is that unexperienced willingness is more valued than unengaged talent. Then, communication is the road that good leadership travels on. Last, organization and preparation are important, but flexibility makes them golden. Each of these key insights is important in having good citizenship as a leader. Being willing is an essential piece to taking responsibility for your community. Communication allows you to lead as a community member, not just a solo leader. Flexibility allows you to work well with others in the community to address continually arising problems.
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"Where Happiness Inspires Hope": Service-Learning with Give Kids the World
Gabrielle M. Lucci
This project explores my experience volunteering with a nonprofit organization that I chose to work with for my LDR3215 course. I chose to work with Give Kids the World, an organization dedicated to providing all-expenses-paid dream vacations to critically ill children and their families. In class, we were tasked with exploring a modern social issue, and I chose disability inequity. Through my service, I improved my interpersonal skills, understood disability inequity's prevalence in society today, and made a positive impact on my community. I also learned about the importance of ally-based advocacy and greater numbers of supporters for increased productivity. This presentation details my service-learning experience, my community impact, its connections to my course, and personal reflections.
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Self-Reflection Through Service Learning
Isabella M. Marrero
The purpose of my service-learning project was to engage in volunteer work that supported both local youth development and global refugee relief. By volunteering at a Judo dojo, I helped children build physical and life skills while fostering discipline and teamwork. Through my involvement with UCF KRMR, I contributed to fundraising efforts that provided essential resources for refugees, raising awareness and advocating for those in need.
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Horses and Humanity: Exploring Equine Wellfare
Miles R. McKnight Mr., Sophia Kouchakjy, Delaney Gallagher, Bryn Maron, and Gustavo Flores
Through LEAD Scholars Animal Rights Leadership, our group had the wonderful opportunity to volunteer at Freedom Ride in Orlando, Florida. This organization provides horseback riding lessons to members of our community with disabilities. While this practice helps the riders physically and mentally, this project highlights Freedom Ride's expertise in horse care, using their organization as an example of proper horse care in this setting. Each horse has individual needs for diet, supplements, training, and more. Find out more about why Freedom Ride's horses live such a fulfilling life in our video!
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How YouTuber's Brands Change as Their Rhetorical Choices Change Over Time
Hector J. Mejia
Rhetoric explains much of human interaction and meaning making, which builds an identity--credibility, trustworthiness, character, or authority. YouTubers use this when publishing content, as it can enhance their monetary streams such as branding or endorsements. This has been explained through the existing conversations in the community, however all of the scholars fail to address the issue throughout time. Through this study, it was found that there is indeed trends among increasing rhetoric (video quality) and the frequency of branding/endorsements. There had also been connections with the content maturity. It was concluded that what was research was interconnected with one another, as videos with high quality focused more on their brands whilst those that had low quality aimed for endorsements. Seeing as this is the same for maturity, with very mature content being low quality and vice versa; YouTubers that focus on their brand shift their target demographic to younger audiences while YouTubers that focus on endorsements appeal to wide demographics over time.
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Encouraging a Safe Space for Jewish Students at UCF
Alexandra Messina
October 7, 2023, was a horrifying day for Israel and the larger Jewish community. Since that day, American Jewish students have faced antisemitism and isolation on campuses around the country. Having a safe space for Jewish students to feel comfortable at school is more important now than ever before. The Hillel, Chabad, and Yehudi organizations at UCF do a great job of providing this space. I partnered with the Hillel to be an active, helpful part of the community that I enjoy being a part of so much. The majority of my time was spent working with freshmen, which was an incredible way to bring in new people to the Jewish community on campus. The Fresh Fest event at the beginning of the year encourages new students to get to know their Jewish community on campus, weekly Nosh and Shabbat events bring everyone together, and classes like JLF and JewishU ensure that everyone is learning and growing in their own religious knowledge. I hope that in having done this, I have made a positive impact on my community and helped others to feel at home and comfortable while being proudly, visibly Jewish.
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The Emergency Room
Omar Mohammed
Volunteering at the ER, my responsibilities are to check on the patients in the ER and see if they need anything to make their stay more comfortable, for example, food, warm blankets, and more. Another responsibility of mine is restocking the rooms with medical supplies and in the hallways. The rooms I Restocked looked like the image below. I learned how important little moments are to people who are not having their best day.
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One Puppy at a Time--Save a Life Pet Rescue
Andrew C. Nazario, Cam Weeks, Kaitlin Stallings, Ray Estevez, and Jesse Cohen
Our service learning group was focused on tackling the issue of overcrowded animal shelters here in Orlando. Overcrowded animal shelters is a growing problem around the world as animal rescues are on the general decline causing active ones to become over filled with dogs needing to be adopted. We helped by volunteering with Save a Life Pet Rescue. Save a Life pet rescue is a non-profit organization that gets puppies flown in from out of state kill shelters to be adopted in the city to give them a literal second change. Our group helped set up and manage their weekly adoption events to get these puppies adopted. During our time volunteering we learned about the importance of never giving up on these animals and to keep fighting for them to get a better life.
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Restoring Reproductive Freedom in Florida
Kyzer Nguyen
In Fall of 2024, leading up to the 2024 Presidential election, I worked on the campaign of "Yes on 4", encouraging people to vote yes on ending Florida's 6 week abortion ban. Put in place with the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, many people in Florida were out of options before they even knew they were pregnant. I spent two months tabling twice every week to educate people on the amendment, and teaching UCF students how to exercise their vote overall.
I got to learn a lot about public service and working with a controversial topic such as abortion, as it made me challenge my perceptions about working in politics overall. Many people are intimidated by topics like this, but it's genuinely an amazing learning experience and a way to get to know one's community.
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Inspiring Memories of Cognitively Impaired Adults Through Art
Kayden R. Peets, Samuel Levin, and Ashley Kulish
Brain Fitness Academy is a place where the elderly with mild cognitive impairments or early dementia meet two times a week in order to improve their cognitive abilities. During our time at the Brain Fitness Academy, we led an art project with the members with the goal of reconnecting them with positive memories of their lives. The art project consisted of questions which correlated to different things that the members would color or glue to their paper. This process made sure that the members worked their brain and used their memory in order to choose answers to the questions.
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How Volunteering with a campus ministry helped shape my view on my career
Angelina S. Pozo Marinho
The purpose of this project was to explore how serving your community can affect your career in the long run. Angelina explores how volunteering with an on campus ministry will affect her career within the animation industry. And seeks out more ways she can serve her community and mentor students attempting to go down the same career pathway is her.
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Promoting Gender Equality - Girl Up Orlando
Meera Puthukkudy
As the Events Director for Girl Up UCF, I was responsible for planning and executing events that promoted the mission of Girl Up, an organization dedicated to empowering girls and advocating for gender equality. My role involved collaborating with other members to brainstorm event ideas, organizing logistics, and coordinating outreach to attract participants and foster a supportive community. Key activities included planning workshops, informational sessions, and fundraising events that engaged and educated our members on global issues impacting girls and women.
One of the main things I learned in this role was the importance of effective communication. Organizing events required clear and consistent communication with team members, external partners, and participants, ensuring that everyone was on the same page and that events ran smoothly.
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Experiencing Opening Your Heart To Hope
Lucia Quinones
Working at the HOPE Chest Thrift Store, I got to learn about looking through quality of clothing, talking with the community, staff members, cleaning up the store, and learning what it's like from an outsider's perspective vs a behind the scenes perspective on how workers are in the back. Main learning lessons, discipline and hard work can go a long way for impacting others. Everyone is doing their best and being the leader to see the background, leads to an open-mind. My goal was to work at a food pantry but it turned into working at a thrift store that needed my help. Any little bit helps.
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Pathways to Potential: Guiding Middle School Students Through Career Exploration
Megan Rhodes
Megan partnered with a local middle school to supplement their curriculum through career development small groups and class lessons, focusing on soft skills and learning about the self. She worked with sixth graders in small groups, and a mix of all grades for classroom lessons. The goal of these interventions is for students to feel more confident in their knowledge about themselves, and to be more equipped with knowledge about their different interests and strengths. The focus of each intervention includes skills, grit, Holland codes and interests, community helpers, and effort. Megan learned how to confidently communicate to students in a variety of settings, be flexible, and utilize guiding questions to help students reflect.
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UCP of Central Florida Early Childhood Aftercare
Mia R. Robinson and Ana S. Rodriguez Caballero
Throughout the semester we dedication 50+ combined hours to volunteer at UCP of Central Florida, a charter school that aims to end the stigma of individuals with special needs by keeping all students in an inclusive classroom. During the time each student will have resources to help them achieve their full potential. We worked in the aftercare section where we were able to help develop motor skills, social skills, and overall create an inclusive environment for the children. We worked primarily with the toddlers, where the main focus was developmental skills and working on basic tasks. Overall while working at UCP it gave us a sense of community in which we are able to give back to not only those who need but those who are the future of the world.
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Waves of Influence- Our Impact on the Next Generation
Caleb Ryland, Mariam Sonbol, Joedy Maysonet, and Lea Obendorf
Through our Service-Learning experience, the four of us came together to create a meaningful learning opportunity for a class of grade school students while also contributing to marine conservation. Our goal was to teach them about the unique adaptations of marine life, focusing on concepts like bioluminescence and camouflage. To make the lesson engaging, the students crafted glow-in-the-dark jellyfish to represent bioluminescence and colored cutouts to demonstrate camouflage. By tapping into their creativity, they not only learned but also showcased their newfound knowledge. The success of our efforts was reflected in the students' improved scores on a post-test compared to the pre-test.