Components include education and libraries, weather, history, transport, business and employment,human services, government, arts and sports and neighborhood news. Exciting events, such as the appearance of the Hale-Bopp comet, are updated frequently. The Newaygo district in Michigan started out as an experiment with a high speed network to link schools by video and audio. It has expanded to provide Internet access to the community, and may now be self supporting. The Great Lakes net is a good model for a regional network with resources from several states.
Regionalism is an important concept in geography now.
In a different vein, if your students wish to serve as volunteers in almost any state, opportunities are provided at Servenet. Many community networks are burgeoning as a result of telecommunications. Some have a narrow focus and a large number of participating groups while others tackle several objectives and have fewer constituents. You will glean many possibilities for your own community by tapping these resources.