Working for projects with services to the community

The objective of this article is to recuperate a component of project work which is all too often forgotten in school work: service to the community. To do so, it looks back at the contributions of authors from the latter half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century from different perspectives, and champions the social dimension and action in the community as basic features of cooperative research. It presents a working method for projects that is based on the ideas of Dewey and Kilpatrick and incorporates the modifications in the educational field that service implies, and the benefits it offers for training. Finally, it describes two experiences in project work involving service to the community. The article defends the idea that any research project will increase its educational potential when combined with the will to transform and the intention to improve the environment.