ELLSWORTH — Virtues such as compassion, courage, loyalty and responsibility can be difficult to learn from a lecture, so Ellsworth High School students took their lessons into the community.

For their “Virtues in Action” project, teacher Andy Beardsley’s sophomore English classes each selected an organization or cause to research and support.

“It’s our school taking us out of the classroom and putting us in real-life situations,” student Kyle Linscott explained.

The chosen organizations were Courtland Rehabilitation and Living Center, Heifer International, Wide Horizons for Children and the KidsPeace autism spectrum disorder program.

Students who chose Courtland or KidsPeace visited the facilities weekly to meet with residents and staff. Students who chose the international programs did their research and fund raising from afar.

Beardsley said he has been teaching a unit on moral virtues for many years but decided to approach the material using the “project-based learning” technique this school year. Project-based learning is an instructional model that encourages students to work as teams on projects that require critical thinking and inquiry skills.

EHS is implementing project-based learning as part of changes made with federal School Improvement Grant funding.

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