Building a New Interdisciplinary Service-Learning Partnership through Virtual Connections

ABSTRACT

This article presents a synopsis of an interdisciplinary literacy-science, cross-country, fully remote service-learning (S-L) project prompted by and executed during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. The article shares discussions, analyses, and evaluations from both community partners (staff of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences at Whiteville) and university faculty (education studies professors from Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas) to highlight how the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic created unique opportunities for S-L. With summary of the S-L partnership's fully online development and comparisons to other, more traditional S-L projects completed pre-COVID-19, we offer readers logistical tips for navigating their own virtual S-L partnerships. The article concludes with student learning outcomes from pre- and postproject reflections and identification of interdisciplinary work benefits from both the professors and community partners.