DECA Community Service/Awareness Project
By:  Jordan Whittecar

Project at a Glance :

Students in Advanced Marketing class will all be members of DECA, where one of the goals is to expose students to PBL and community service. This project will combine the two by having students go through the PBL process to actually do a competitive DECA project to help our community in some way. 
       
Driving Question:

How can Jenison DECA raise awareness or funds for a community issue or cause?           

Standards:

• Attitude & Work Habits
• Interpersonal Skills
• Dependability & Reliability

Team / Culture Building:

• Students will complete the:  Ennegram test,  Which Department is Best for Me survey, and create an Ennegram poster on Canva.​ ​

Entry Event:

• Host a PowerPoint Party - We started the project with a "PowerPoint Party" to get to know each other in a fun way. ​

Stakeholders:

• Non-profit organizations.
• Community members that utilize the non-profits.
• School Staff
• Marketing I students involved in DECA. 

Empathy Building:

• Students will volunteer at their non-profit at beginning of project.​

• Create a Journey Map

Inquiry / Need to Knows:

• Use the AEIOU protocol to investigate.

• SOAR activity
• QFT protocol

Incubation:

• Students used the Lotus Blossom to record several ideas and give potential details. ​

• Then completed Now, Wow, How to narrow down and decide on a path forward.
• How Would . . . Solve the Problem?Because students were working with non-profits, the teacher wanted them look at it through a major company with basically unlimited resources. This helped them to come up with creative ideas, but then tweak to stay in budget.

​Checking in:

• ​Students had daily check ins using the Start, Stop, Continue protocol.
• Create a Top 10 List after students have done the investigation phase.
• ​Groups created calendars to stay on task and see what was coming up in the month.

---

Solution Building:

• Students in the BeNice group organized donut and cider sales at the junior high and high school, created a mental health awareness podcast, and made giant signs to hang in the hallway for social media photos.
• Students in the Hand2Hand group created a food drive competition between classes at school. Each day, they picked up the food and recorded it on a spreadsheet.
• Students used the Who, What, When strategy to build their solution ideas.

Authentic Audience:

• Non-profit organization staff
• Critical friends volunteers
• School administrators
• Jenison Public Schools Parent Liasons

Final Presentation:

• The BeNice group presented to Christy, CEO.  They raised $203 and created a podcast on mental health that had 46 plays at the end of the project.
• Students in the Hand2Hand group presented their project to Angie, Education Coordinator.  They collected approximately 700 food items to donate. Two of the group members, Dylann and Liv, are competing at DECA in the Project Management category. They will showcase this project and the PBL process.​

• Click here for teacher's full plan.
• DECA Community Service Project plan

Reflection and Feedback:

• ​Students will complete the PBL reflection document both individually and as a group. 

Click here for the teacher's Journey through PBL on Padlet . . .

Meet the Educator:

Jordan Whittecar teaches Business and Marketing classes at Jenison High School in Jenison, MI, as well as serves on the Michigan Marketing Educators Board and is a DECA Advisor. 

     "Students find value in their education when they are doing something that means something, and that's what PBL does."