Appreciating the local environment - How do children connect?

Place based learning appears as a new concept that is being talked about in the education world, but actually it is not new. Real education that is practical and experiential needs to be rooted in the local environment. I will highlight some background on this topic from the pedagogical standpoint and then extend my point with examples of how I integrate this pedagogy in my practice.

Place-based education has many roots: from the age-old practice of learning from our surroundings, to the ideas of Dewey (1929) and Geddes (Higgins and Nicol, 2009). However the phrase became popular in the last two decades in the United States through the work of the Orion Society (2010) and educators such as Gruenewald (2003), Knapp (2001) and Smith (2002). Place-based education marks the development of environmental education to include local as well as global issues, and engage learners with the interdependence of ecological and community issues around them (Smith, 2002).

Place-based learning is a philosophy of education that uses the local community and surrounding environment as an integrating context for multidisciplinary learning. It is characterized by student-driven, project-based explorations of local environmental issues, social questions, cultural heritage, or civic leadership.

The approach to Educating for Sustainability, as stated by the Center of Ecoliteracy, follows the following guiding principles:

• Nature is our teacher

• Sustainability is a community Practice

• The real world is the Optimal Learning Environment

• Sustainable living is rooted in a deep knowledge of PLACE

We practice Place Based Learning by growing rice, taking care of the crop, harvesting it and finally storing, selling or consuming it - this is a possibility because we are in a rice producing area, i.e Bali. If you are in a wheat producing area then you can teach your child/children to grow, harvest and devour the local grain. Similarly children can grow vegetables that are suited to the local climate rather than always buying non seasonal vegetables from the market. Such real opportunities help children to connect with their local environment and they learn first-hand several key science concepts that cannot be substituted by reading or experimenting alone.

Last year my students extended their connection to the place by collaborating with the local school to address a very local problem of unmanaged waste in the neighborhood. When children connect to a place they can take proactive measures in finding solutions to issues out of love and compassion for the place, much like increasing awareness of waste management amongst students and teachers of local schools and being role models for them in the community. This type of contextualized learning and creative participation in the locality can provide opportunities for students to investigate and deepen their relationship to their home places.

As parents we can extend our children's learning in Bali by encouraging and participating in place-based activities like local ceremonies, rice plantings, and walking through the rice paddies. We can inculcate love for our locality and a feeling of belonging by interacting with the local population. Eating locally grown foods is beneficial for our health, economy, environment and spirit. Encouraging children to make paints from plants, take care of animals,  and collect seeds to re-grow them provides hands on nature based holistic enjoyment. These and many more activities provide experiences that create special meaning and memories for our children, nurturing their connection with the environment and place.

References:

American Institutes of Research. 2005. Effects of Outdoor Education Programs for Children in California. Sacramento.

Bai, H., & Scott, G. (2009). Touching the earth with the heart of enlightened mind: The Buddhist practice of mindfulness for environmental education. Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, 14.

Cameron, J. I. (2003). Educating for place responsiveness: an Australian perspective on ethical practice. Ethics, Place & Environment 6(2), pp. 99-115.

Dewey, J. (1929). Experience and nature. New York: Dover.

Gruenewald, D. A. (2003). Foundations of place: A multidisciplinary framework for place conscious education. American Education Research Journal 

Orr, D. W. (1992). Ecological literacy: Education and the transition to a postmodern world. Albany: State University of New York Press.