Field trips to industrial printing presses and learning how to design cities aren't typical classroom lessons, but for students in the Sunnyside Unified School District, they're becoming the norm.

CommunityShare was started by a high school science teacher alongside educators, nonprofits and community mentors with a shared goal: connecting community members with local classrooms to create unique learning opportunities.

Through a partnership with Pima County, CommunityShare has brought that opportunity to educators across Tucson, with the Sunnyside district among its most active participants. In five years, teachers from 16 of its 21 schools have implemented year-long classroom projects through the program.

While any teacher in Pima County can participate, Sunnyside organizes its participating teachers into a cohort that meets monthly, with a showcase of projects each May.

Sunnyside's CommunityShare co-facilitator Jackie Nichols said the program is about elevating students' curriculum through "community-engaged learning."

"Students, their teachers and community partners are brainstorming and co-creating these inquiries and these investigations together," she said. "It's student voice centered, it's community centered. It is a partnership between the world outside of education and inside education, a duality of learning."

Nichols teaches STEM to middle school students and said the partnership gave her the freedom to teach beyond the textbook and show students how STEM shows up in their community.

"CommunityShare made it possible for me to find partners that represent the identities of my students so that they could begin to see themselves in those professional roles, those professional capacities," she said.

CommunityShare makes pairing mentors with teachers easy through what Nichols calls a "human library."

"We have a system where the teacher reaches out to a database of partners and has an initial meeting with them to discover, is this truly going to be a positive collaboration, the kind of collaboration I'm seeking," Nichols said.

Nichols partnered with a University of Arizona landscape architect and a water science policy analyst. Through demonstrations and hands-on learning, her students designed and built their own "future city" using models and guidance from their mentors, then competed in the Arizona Future City and SARSEF science competitions.

Nichols said it's a perfect opportunity for students to uncover problems in their community and explore them through hands-on learning.

Elementary schools are also benefitting from the program.

Gallego Primary Fine Arts Magnet School teachers Renee Bonilla and Jennifer Valentine brought CommunityShare into their second- and third-grade classrooms, using local artists to teach students about the Sonoran Desert through poetry and drawing. Valentine said the projects get students motivated and engaged.

"They just aren't really interested in what we're normally doing, but they really care about animals and have been talking to us a lot about learning more about the desert," Valentine said. "Kids that usually won't sit still for even five minutes would sit for two hours to work on their art project. Kids who hate writing are writing poems and reading them to each other."

At the end of the year, students visited WestPress, an industrial printing press on Tucson's west side, where they learned about the printing industry and watched their poems and drawings become a physical book each could take home.

Pima County Schools Superintendent Dustin Williams joined the field trip, saying CommunityShare allows students to learn about their community and the careers around them.

"Having students learning real life industry and watching the students' faces and the sparkle in their eye, it just warms my heart to see this partnership and the students learning a career that's really meaningful," he said. "I was speaking to a boy inside [WestPress] and he was sharing with me his picture and his poem and that he felt like he was an author."

CommunityShare also provides an opportunity for Desert View and Sunnyside High School students to gain valuable skills through a mentorship program.

Through an interview process, select high school students can join CommunityShare to volunteer and even earn pay. Co-facilitator Priscilla Switzer said having high school students serve as mentors gives them a chance to give back to the community.

"The high school mentors say they love working with the younger kids," she said. "They're like, 'wow, I was that kid and now I'm giving back.'"

Nichols said the community-focused approach makes learning relevant and interesting.

"It's about helping students develop their voice for change and to develop their voice for leadership on topics that they are interested in, topics they are passionate about," she said. "It's giving them an opportunity to discover what those look like in the real world."

Elias Bonilla is a journalism and political science major at the University of Arizona and Tucson Spotlight intern. Contact him at ebonilla1500@gmail.com.

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