Place-Based Education: Learning In and About Our Watershed
A group of students huddle around a model of their watershed. They are discussing what they know about their community, the challenges that need to be addressed, and the valuable components that need to be safeguarded. Woven into the conversation are key concepts in ecology, geology, public health, economics, community planning, and more. Later, they wade into the stream near their school to assess the health of the waterway. They catalog the presence of benthic macroinvertebrates and glean from this collection of tiny organisms an indication of the well-being of the ecosystem they are exploring.
As one young person examines a Caddisfly Larva on the underside of a rock, they learn about the net this creature spins from silk to collect sustenance carried to them by the flowing waters. This student is simultaneously spinning a web in which they are connected to the Caddisfly, the stream, the falling leaf, the fish, the Mink, their classmates, and their place.
Place-based education, as the name suggests, is specific to the physical location in which each program exists. Education initiatives, curriculum, and lessons are developed and unfold in the context of the learner’s local community. By leveraging students’ lived experiences and organizing around topics and questions that are immediately relevant and tangible, place-based education is able to bring learning out of the classroom and weave it into the larger community.
According to Smith (2002), “The primary value of place-based education lies in the way that it serves to strengthen children’s connections to others and to the regions in which they live.” In my work as an educator, I have the honor and responsibility of guiding a student’s construction of a network between themselves, their community, and the natural world. When Smith ushered place-based education into the mainstream academic literature, scholars recognized it as a significant step forward for a long line of attempts to breakdown the homogenization and streamlining of education (Knapp, 2005).
Through our Watershed Alliance programs, Lake Champlain Sea Grant hopes to increase student knowledge about the basin. We provide hands on watershed education and water quality monitoring opportunities, encouraging students to use their knowledge to organize a stewardship project and improve their community. We meet students in the classroom and in nearby natural areas to discuss watershed health and assess streams with which they have a direct relationship.
“Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things” (Oliver, 1986).
Place-based education gives students an opportunity to head out of the classroom and heed the calls from beings with whom we share this world. “Alienation is often the consequence of the absence of experiences that confirm our value to the people with whom we share our lives” (Smith, 2002). Young people deserve to have their time valued and to have meaningful interactions with their community. What is education for if not to affirm students’ capacity and responsibility to create a better world?
References
- Knapp, C. (2005). The “I - Thou” Relationship, Place-Based Education and Also Leopold. Journal of Experiential Education, 27(3), 227-285.
- Oliver, M. (1986). Dream work. Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press.
- Smith, G. A. (2002). Place-Based Education: Learning to Be Where We are. Phi Delta Kappan, 83(8), 584–594.
Learn more about Watershed Alliance and their educational programs in this video: