Course Description
LS:2024:0001 ALTERNATIVE BREAK LEADERSHIP
In preparing students to lead successful alternative break teams, this course focuses on techniques for planning trip logistics, educating students on social issues, and facilitating critical reflection. Development in theoretical approaches to service-learning specifically connected to service immersion leadership; variety of concepts including intersectionality of varied social and community issues, reflection and reciprocity, active citizenship and community building, practical implementation of skills from student's academic disciplines, leadership development, and other related areas.
[NOTE: This guide was created for Charlotte Brown's fall 2018 section of this course.]
Objectives
Students will be able to:
Find accurate and useful information related to team topic and location
- focus on a particular social issue (e.g. homelessness, food justice, gentrification, education equity, etc.)
- nonprofits who address that issue in the city where they will travel to over spring break
Finding Local Community Information
Things to search for online about the local community, try Googling:
- City government
- City council
- Chamber of Commerce
- find their local newspaper
- find their local news outlets (ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, etc.)
Next, try the Libraries' InfoHawk+ Tool to search for books, articles, and news sources all at the same time:
Background Information
- CQ Researcher This link opens in a new window Written by experienced journalists, footnoted and professionally fact-checked. CQ Researcher provides in-depth coverage of the most important issues of the day.
- ProQuest Statistical Abstract of the U.S. This link opens in a new window The ProQuest Statistical Abstract of the United States is the authoritative and comprehensive summary of statistics on the social, political, and economic conditions of the United States. The online version includes monthly updates to tables, deep searching at the line-item level, powerful facets for narrowing search results, image and spreadsheet versions of all current and historical tables, along with links to provider sites.
News
- Access World News Research Collection This link opens in a new window Current and archived information from thousands of local, regional, national, and international news sources. Find diverse perspectives on topics related to business and economics, controversial issues, criminal justice, education, environmental studies, health, international studies, performing and fine arts, political science, science, social issues and more from a variety of current and retrospective news media including newspapers, newswires, broadcast transcripts, blogs, periodicals, videos and web-only content. Includes the Chicago Tribune and some Iowa newspapers.
- America's News Magazines This link opens in a new window Coverage of U.S. and international news, business, lifestyle, entertainment, sports, and science and technology from 26 familiar magazines.
- Ethnic Newswatch Complete This link opens in a new window Ethnic NewsWatch is a current resource of full-text newspapers, magazines, and journals of the ethnic and minority press, providing researchers access to essential, often overlooked perspectives. The database now also contains Ethnic NewsWatch: A History, which provides historical coverage of Native American, African American, and Hispanic American periodicals from 1959-1989
- Factiva This link opens in a new window Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune are not accessible from Factiva. Contains a wide variety of financial information including business and economic news, text-search services, stock market quotations, financial and investment services and general news and information. NB: 10 simultaneous user limit.
This link opens in a new window
- Newspaper Source Plus This link opens in a new window Newspaper Source Plus provides selected full text for over 200 regional U.S. newspapers, international newspapers, newswires, newspaper columns and other sources as well as indexing and abstracts for national newspapers. This database is updated daily.
- Nexis Uni (formerly LexisNexis) This link opens in a new window TURN OFF POP-UP BLOCKER; Researchers can quickly and easily search full-text documents from over 17,000 credible sources of information and pinpoint relevant information for a wide range of academic research projects. Extensive legal sources for federal and state cases and statutes, including U.S. Supreme Court decisions since 1790
TIP: Look for a link that says "Sources" or "Publications" to see if your city is represented by a publication in the database.
Social Issues Databases
- Academic Search Elite This link opens in a new window This multi-disciplinary database offers full text for nearly 2,000 scholarly journals, including more than 1,500 peer-reviewed titles. Covering virtually every area of academic study, Academic Search Elite offers full text information dating as far back as 1985. This database is updated on a daily basis.
- Sociological Abstracts This link opens in a new window Provides article abstracts from 1,800 journals in sociology, from 1952 to the present. [Not compatible with Internet Explorer 9]
- PAIS International This link opens in a new window PAIS International covers the literature of public affairs including political, economic and social issues. PAIS International contains references to articles, books, government documents, statistical directories, research reports, conference reports and publications of international agencies. Publications from more than 120 countries are included. [Not compatible with Internet Explorer 9]
- Education Source This link opens in a new window Full text for more than 1,700 journals, 550 books and monographs, education-related conference papers, citations for over 4 million articles including book reviews.
- ERIC (EBSCOhost version) This link opens in a new window This database is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education to provide extensive access to education-related literature. ERIC provides coverage of journal articles, conferences, meetings, government documents, theses, dissertations, reports, audiovisual media, bibliographies, directories, books and monographs.
- Econlit This link opens in a new window Source material in this database includes journal articles, essays, research papers, books, dissertations, book reviews, and working papers. Contains more than 735,000 records covering 1969-present. The subjects covered within EconLit include accounting, consumer economics, monetary policy, labor, marketing, demographics, modeling, economic theory, planning, and much more.
- Urban Studies Abstracts This link opens in a new window Includes bibliographic records covering essential areas related to urban studies, including urban affairs, community development, urban history, and other areas of key relevance to the discipline. The index contains 40,000 records, which are carefully selected from the most important sources within the discipline, such as: Urban Affairs Review, Urban studies, Journal of Urban Affairs, etc. EBSCO has digitized the full archive of this index, bringing coverage back to 1973.
TIPS:
- Search using OR between related search terms to get more results.
Example: gentrification OR urban renewal - Search using "double quotation marks" around a phrase for more precise results:
Example: "youth education" - Search using the built-in controlled vocabulary.
Example: a keyword search for "food insecurity" may lead you to the Subject Heading of food security - Search using an asterisk (*) at the end of a word or set of letters in order to get various endings of that word.
Examples: homeless* will provide results for homeless or homelessness;
educat* will provide results for education or educate or educated or educational, etc.
Let us Help
It's your library and we are here to help!
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Stop in to visit us in person at the Service Desk in the Main Library or any of the campus libraries
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Schedule a one-on-one research consultation with a librarian
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Use Guides to find resources on a wide variety of subject areas, and the contact information for the librarian who works with that subject
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Use LibAnswers Frequently Asked Questions to find an answer
Email us @ lib-ref@uiowa.edu
Call us @ 319-335-5299
SMS us @ 319-313-2395
In addition, try looking at our Tutorials for to-the-point video tutorials that give you just the info you need.
Locations and Topics
To find basic demographic information about your communities, search the American FactFinder from the U.S. Census, and do a search for your location in WolframAlpha.
- Atlanta - Food Justice
- Biloxi - Disability Rights
- Dallas - Public Health
- Denver - Homelessness
- Detroit - The Arts
- Indianapolis - Food Justice
- Kansas City - Youth Education
- Little Rock - Children's Health
- Louisville - Public Health
- Memphis - Racial Justice
- Milwaukee - Urban Housing
- Birmingham - Gentrification
- St. Louis - Education Equity
- Nashville - Economic Disparity
TIP: You may be able to find articles about your topic that take place in your location, but you can search your topic and your location separately in order to discover more results.
Undergraduate Engagement Librarian
orcid.org/0000-0003-2520-9874