Service-Learning Cross-Cultural Collaboration: Sustainable Actions in an Elementary School, Bagaces, Costa Rica

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of the experience and learning outcomes from a problem-based service-learning opportunity carried out within the context of a travel course focused on sustainable design and construction. Through a partnership between professional programs from two institutions of higher education, students from XXX University travel to Costa Rica to meet their learning partners from the University of Costa Rica. During the travel course students participate in a service-learning project. The experience successfully emphasizes the power of service-learning to impact student values and thinking, reinforcing social and civic responsibility. As a mechanism to achieve cross-cultural understanding, this service-learning opportunity successfully invites exchange and appreciation of similarities as well as differences through collaborative problem solving, deepening student motivation to learn.