Spaces and Places in Education: Enhancing Engagement by Creating Connected Curricula

Event Date & Time

Event Description

Pillar: People and Places

“Place-based education enhances students’ learning by recognizing the significance of cultural, historical, ecological and spiritual ties to landscape. Incorporating the local environment offers unique, rich opportunities to strengthen engagement for students from all backgrounds. For example, geography students learning about land use mapping could be introduced to maps and planning relating to the traditional lands of the Musqueam people. Or, ecology students working in the Fraser River could learn about the importance of the waterway to many groups of people over time.

Join us for an interactive session as we share best practices from our work and encourage participants to develop strategies that apply to their student communities. In this workshop, participants will develop their definition of place-based education and how it can fit into their classes. We will share case studies of place-based activities designed by two of the co-facilitators at the University of Hawai‘i . The University of Hawai‘i is committed to being a model indigenous-serving institution and to achieve this, numerous strategic initiatives are in place to address the higher education needs of Native Hawaiians. We will also share results of a study from the University of Canterbury conducted by another co-facilitator that demonstrate opportunities and evidence-based best practices for place-based education. Participants will use the ideas and recommendations from these case studies to help adapt an existing activity or create a new lesson that incorporates place-based learning.

By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

1. Develop a definition for place-based education that suits their context
2. Incorporate place-based learning into their own teaching contexts

Come with an activity or lesson in mind that you want to transform and view through a place-based lens.”

Facilitators

Sarah Bean Sherman, Science Education Specialist, Earth Ocean & Atmospheric Sciences
Daniela Bottjer-Wilson, Faculty Specialist, Centre for Teaching Excellence (University of Hawaii)
Jennifer Engels, Assistant Professor, Department of Geology and Geophysics (University of Hawaii)
Alison Jolley, Science Teaching and Learning Fellow, Earth Ocean & Atmospheric Sciences

Resources

• Semken et al – Place-Based Education in Geoscience (Literature Review)
  https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.5408/17-276.1