Long Beach BLAST works with individual faculty to create a volunteer experience that allows students to effectively relate their coursework with their volunteer experience.  To enable professors to easily engage their students in the community, BLAST handles the entire volunteer process.  BLAST is very flexible about the placement of college students.  Placements can be molded to fit specific course objectives.  Papers and projects can be written linking the student’s BLAST experience to concepts they learn in class.

BLAST’s General Learning Objectives

• To enable mentors to discover first hand the challenges facing at-risk youth.
• To enrich mentors’ educational experience and provide them with active learning opportunities through their exposure to child development, the educational system, poverty, socioeconomics, racial diversity, and other issues.
• To engage mentors in the community so that they have the opportunity to become lifelong activists for positive change and also to build social capitol. 
• To allow mentors the opportunity to explore career options.

See below for how BLAST can be used specifically to enhance a student’s learning in the following disciplines:

Anthropology

• Anthropologists typically study people immersed in their culture.  BLAST enables Anthropology students to learn about the culture surrounding at risk youth and the daily challenges they face. 
• While interacting with their student, mentors will observe first hand their student’s human experience from biological, social, and cultural perspectives. 
• This interaction will allow the mentor to understand their society, as well as others.
• BLAST is an excellent experience for anyone requiring practical knowledge of different cultural backgrounds, as our students’ backgrounds are extremely varied.

Black Studies

• Many of the children to whom BLAST provides services are African-American.  At the request of faculty, BLAST can match college volunteers with an African-American mentee.
• Working with an African American mentee will give students the opportunity to observe themes, issues, and concepts they learn in class in a real world setting.
• Mentoring African-American youth who are at-risk for academic failure assists in alleviating some of the issues the mentors will learn about in their class.

Chicano(a)/Latin America/Latino(a) Studies

• A majority of the children to whom BLAST provides services are Chicano(a)/Latin America/Latino(a).  At the request of faculty, BLAST can match college volunteers with a Chicano(a)/Latin America/Latino(a) mentee.
• Working one-on-one with a Chicano(a)/Latin America/Latino(a) mentee will allow students to observe themes, issues, and concepts they learn in class in a real world setting.
• Mentoring Chicano(a)/Latin America/Latino(a) youth who are at-risk for academic failure assists in alleviating some of the issues the mentors will learn about in class.

Child and Adolescent Development

1. Mentors will have the opportunity to interact one-on-one with children between the ages of six and eighteen thus, allowing the student an opportunity to intimately explore and understand the development of a child.
2. Since the youth we serve differ in ethnicity, gender, and social class, mentors will see first hand the ways in which these differences play a role in the development of their mentee as well as other children in the program.
3. Mentors will have the opportunity to observe motor, social, physiological, emotional/psychological, and cognitive aspects of development.

Communication Studies

• Mentors will participate in discussions with their students throughout their volunteer experience, allowing them to practice basic principles and techniques of discussion.
• Mentors may also be given the opportunity to practice critical thinking and problem-solving techniques in various group discussion settings.
• Mentors will have the opportunity to observe first hand the symbolic basis of human communicative behavior and the relationship between language and behavior.
• Since we serve youth from a variety of cultural backgrounds, mentors will be able to observe the relationship between culture and communication with emphasis given to social, psychological, linguistic and nonverbal variables.  They will also notice any challenges in the practice of intercultural communication.
• Specifically working with children, mentors will have the opportunity to use creative dramatics, improvisations, puppetry, choral speech, radio, television and group discussion for the purpose of developing fluency, responsiveness and imagination in children.  These speech arts activities can be integrated with the children’s academic subjects.

Criminal Justice

• The youth we serve are at-risk of failing academically, leading to a myriad of other problems, including increased potential for going to prison in the future.  Working with these students, the mentors have the opportunity to see first hand the circumstances that contribute to people ending up in our prison system.  
• Mentors are also exposed to alternatives that can keep our youth out of the prison system.
• Mentors have the opportunity to positively affect an at-risk youth’s life so they are less likely to become part of the system.

Dance/Theatre

• Mentors can be paired up with a student who has interest in dance and/or theatre.  After the mentor has helped their child with academics, he/she can teach the child dance and/or theatre.
• College students can teach a one hour dance and/or theatre class once a week.
• Students will be able to expose children to dance and/or theatre and will be able to work on the techniques involved in each with the children.

Education (General)

• Mentors have the opportunity to work with a student who is significantly underperforming in that mentor’s area of subject expertise (reading, writing, math, science, social studies, etc.).
• Volunteers with the BLAST program are able to assess the needs of an individual child and come up with creative lesson plans and activities to meet the needs of that child.
• Many of the children we serve are English Language Learners (ELL).  If requested by faculty, mentors will get the opportunity to work with such a student.  This will enable future teachers to learn about the unique challenges of ELL students and develop strategies for addressing these concerns.

Art Education

• Mentors will have the opportunity to practice developing children’s artistic and aesthetic development.

• Mentors will be able to put to use strategies and skills for teaching art with the child they are mentoring.
• Since we serve youth from a variety of cultural backgrounds, mentors will observe in a real life setting what they have learned relating art to cultural contexts.

Elementary Education

• A majority of the children we work with are in the elementary grades.  Working with an elementary student gives volunteers and opportunity to put into practice knowledge and skills they have gained in the classroom.
• Mentors have the opportunity to work with a student who is significantly underperforming in that mentor’s area of subject expertise (reading, writing, math, science, social studies, etc.).
• Volunteers with the BLAST program are able to assess the needs of an individual child and come up with creative lesson plans and activities to meet the needs of that child.
• Many of the children we serve are English Language Learners (ELL).  If requested by faculty, mentors will get the opportunity to work with such a student.  This will enable future teachers to learn about the unique challenges of ELL students and develop strategies for addressing these concerns.

Reading and Writing in Secondary Education

• Mentors will be matched with a High School student struggling to pass the English portion of the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE).
• BLAST gives prospective teachers the opportunity to learn about the unique needs of a student, assess the student, and come up with innovative skill building activities that will help enable to student to pass the CAHSEE. 
• BLAST helps volunteers learn how to meet the needs of students struggling to pass the CAHSEE and teaches volunteers how to utilize CAHSEE preparation materials, both of which are crucial skills for prospective High School teachers. 

Health Sciences

• Volunteers can work on educating children about their bodies and overall health.
• Volunteers will come up with lesson plans of how to teach children about health sciences in a creative and interactive way, thereby enhancing their own learning.

Language and Culture

• Mentors will have the opportunity to observe and interact with students in a social setting, thus observing the relation of language patterns to social life.
• Since our students come from a variety of cultural backgrounds, mentors will have the opportunity to observe problems of meaning in cross-cultural communication and language translation, particularly if they work with an English Language Learner. 
• Mentors will also have the opportunity to observe and participate in the practical application of what they learn in class.

Management Information Systems

• BLAST has several programs that are technology based.  Working with children in a technology program gives mentors the opportunity to share the knowledge they learn in class with their mentees.
• Technology is becoming increasingly important for education and career advancement, mentors who are knowledgeable in technology can help children become technology proficient and thus help gain practical skills that will benefit them throughout their lives.

Political Science/Public Policy

• Mentors will observe firsthand the impact policies have on the community, particularly as it relates to urban areas, youth, and education.
• Mentors will see the multiple sources of ethnic, racial, gender, and class inequalities in the United States and see how the public policies have attempted to address these issues.
• Mentors may become inspired to get involved in the political process as a result of their experience with BLAST.
• Mentors can impart the knowledge they learn from their class onto their mentees.

Philosophy

• Mentors will begin or continue to question issues of obligation, responsibility, social justice, and personal ideals through their interactions with their student.
• Mentors will make connections between the philosophies they discuss in class and how it relates to their real world experiences.
• Mentors will see how these philosophies affect the students they work with.

Psychology

• Psychology, being the science of behavior, fits very well with the BLAST program.  Volunteers with BLAST will have the opportunity to observe children and adolescents’ behavior through their interactions with them.
• Mentors will be able to observe the many factors that affect a person’s individual behavior.
• Mentors can be placed to work with a specific child in order to meet special course requirement or volunteer in a particular capacity according to the course’s learning objectives. 

Recreation & Leisure (General)

• BLAST serves students participating in after school programs, which would provide mentors the opportunity to observe and engage in the recreation aspect of after school programming.
• Mentors can be paired one on one with students to incorporate their recreation programming experience into creating a more engaging and fun way to of learning academics.
• Recreation students could work with an after school program in creating and implementing a recreational program and/or special event for the site.
• Mentors could assess the site for its recreational use and needs and create a manual with suggested activities and resources for the site.

Human Services Programming in Urban Areas

• Mentors will volunteer in diverse communities and will have the opportunity to observe a variety of different social issues, particularly as it relates to urban areas.
• After school programs provide recreational and human service needs for the children we serve.  Mentors participating in our program will be able to see firsthand how such a program operates.
• A written project could also be incorporated into the course including an assessment of what is being provided, additional services/activities the program could provide, and agency collaborations that would be necessary to make that happen.

Sociology

• Mentors will interact with a child who has been uniquely impacted by society and culture, thus providing the opportunity to observe sociological concepts learned in class firsthand.
• Since we serve youth from very diverse backgrounds, mentors will observe first hand the effect society has on people of different races, ethnicities, religions, socioeconomic status, and gender.
• Mentors will observe the theories of stratification and inequality discussed in class. They will observe how social class affects opportunity structures, income, social mobility and life chances, as well as the causes and consequences of economic, political and social inequality
• Mentors will see social trends and problems in the communities we serve, including social inequality, crime, health and illness, education, media, and environment.
• Mentors will witness the origins and development of the self through the socialization process, including identity, role behavior and attitudes.
• Mentors will observe first hand the structure, organization and function of small groups, and small group dynamics, including individuals in social situations, stages of group development, and small group approaches to problems.

 
Women’s Studies

• Mentors can be paired with female students in order to observe the concepts discussed in class.
• Mentors will be able to witness firsthand many of the issues concerning young women, particularly those from low income families. 
• Mentoring female youth who are at-risk for academic failure assists in alleviating some of the issues the students will learn about in class.