Design Elements for Place-Based Geoscience Teaching

Abstract:

A familiar definition of place-based education is teaching and learning that are situated in a place or region, and which draw broadly on the natural and cultural attributes of that place or region as a starting point or context for teaching different subjects. While apt, this definition does not provide a specific template or recommendations to aspiring place-based educators, especially those who are new to the approach. Meta-analyses by the authors and others of published recommendations and examples of actual practice have produced a list of five key characteristics of place-based geoscience education, which can also be considered design elements or design aspirations to inform the design, implementation, and assessment of place-based teaching. These design elements are: (1) Focus content on the natural attributes of the place under study; (2) Integrate cultural attributes of the place under study in appropriate ways, to add context and relevance; (3) Teach with authentic experiences in that place or an environment that meaningfully evokes that place; (4) Teach and promote ideas and practices for natural and cultural resilience and sustainability of that place; and (5) Encourage and empower students to form and strengthen their own intellectual and emotional connections to that place (their senses of place). Use of any or all of these elements situate curriculum and instruction on a continuum from mindful use of places as examples at one end, to fully trans-disciplinary education in which the places themselves become the subjects, at the other. Each of them will be illustrated with specific examples from current place-based practice.

While offering these elements as a template for place-based teaching, we are evaluating their generalizability and whether this list is a necessary and sufficient characterization of this far-ranging modality. We welcome and encourage discourse on these open questions in the community of place-based educators, experienced and novice alike.