Connections made to one’s self and community are hallmarks of optimum pedagogy. Offering learning opportunities that make connections to students’ prior knowledge, their interests, and their curiosities, in the context of their physical, social and cultural environment, promotes a way for them to make their own meaning and understanding. These experiences employ critical thinking, creativity, communication, and collaboration as they are processed through an integration of multiple curricular disciplines. Intentional learning experiences are carefully implemented to assist children in extending their conceptual understanding rather than depending on random occurrences.
Intentionality does suggest the importance of the adult/child relationship balance in determining how, what, and why concepts will be learned about the world and the development of concepts within a social context. Place-based education, as a framework of this thinking, encourages a commitment to a sense of place. It uses the surrounding home, school, and community environment of the student as the focal point for learning, then gradually widens from the neighborhood to the world. Using place-based education in a classroom lesson design deepens understanding of the geographic location as well as the people and customs of the place. It enables students, through their experiences, to become more responsible citizens of their own inhabited place and the world. Background
Supported by theory, the principles of place-based education extend a promise of connection to one’s sense of place. David Sobel (2003) suggests that instruction should begin with the “place” where the student lives. Place, as a construct, includes the physical, cultural, and social domains in which the learner resides and capitalizes on the background knowledge necessary to ground new learning. Learning starts with the child in the context of his place; what the child has already experienced, knows, and is thinking. Comenius (1592-1670) made similar assertions five centuries ago concerning education, saying that first, conceptual knowledge about the child’s closest environment occurs, and then connections are formed to the broader context (Woodhouse 2001). Pestalozzi also contended that instruction should start with the immediate surroundings of the child rather than the distant or more abstract. The simple comes first, moving outward to the more complex (Evans and Kilinc 2013, 265).
Place-based education emphasizes experiential, active, and genuine learning, which increases academic engagement and achievement and a sense of belonging to a community. Fred Newmann and Gary Wehlage (1995, 31) conducted a five-year study of mathematics and social studies education. This study showed that students had to work to solve problems, document their findings, and produce meaningful products and solutions. The authors found that authentic and meaningful projects that were absorbing for the children enhanced their performance. The work was authentic to the work of real life. Debbie Muthersbaugh, Anne Kern, and Rebecca Charvoz (2014, 323-324) studied elementary students’ understanding of environmental science in place-based integrated lessons. The outcomes of the study indicated that through the use of visual representations students could critically analyze their understanding of environmental science, yet, held some misconceptions of the concepts. It was clear, however, in the students’ oral responses and written documentation that they valued the place where they lived and they desired to have a positive impact on their location and the world.
Connor Sloan (2013, 3-4) proposed that the use of place-based education also offers genuine learning opportunities where students of different cultures can discuss the impact of culture and local norms that exist in and around their sense of place. “Conditioning the mind to inquire about the placement, patterns, and origins of our surroundings allows for learners to acquire a deeper understanding of culture and place” (Sloan 2013, 3). David Sobel (2005) supports the idea that transformation in understanding will develop through an emerging ecological understanding. David Gruenewald (2003) also contends that place-based education must go beyond the study of the local environment to a more critical analysis of the setting, that of, investigating assumptions held in the local environment. He proposes that students and teachers look for those practices that will restore beneficial and sustainable solutions for all people.
Reflected in the progressive tradition, place-based education promotes that children study all aspects of where they learn and live, in and outside the classroom, and then expands connections into a fuller experience of context. John Dewey contended, “…experience [outside the school] has its geographical aspect, its artistic and its literary, its scientific and its historical sides. All studies arise from aspects of one earth and the one life lived upon it” (Dewey 1915, 91). Dewey’s conception of outdoor education was to integrate learning from the classroom with examples, incidences and patterns that the students have experienced outside the classroom (Woodhouse and Knapp 2000, 1). The learners are absorbed in the richness of what surrounds them. Through the use of the students’ environment as the focus for learning, their understanding of the geographic setting as well as the people and customs of the place becomes enriched and intensified.
One associated dimension of place-based education studied in the research focuses on environmental education. From this perspective, students can be introduced to the importance of the ecosystem in which they live and how it must be managed and protected to enhance their quality of life. “People tend to care for what they know,” write Gregory Smith and David Sobel (2013, 96). Planning instruction to connect students to the woods, to the water, and to the places outside the school, offers awareness and discernment necessary to make the hard choices about the environment that will be inherent to their adulthood (Sobel 2003). Connections to the spheres of community help them support future program initiatives guarding the world’s natural systems. Through their involvement in environmental issues, students learn how their community works, the kinds of resources that are available to them, and how the citizenry functions within them.
It strengthens each student’s ethnographic sensitivity and promotes civic engagement. Place-based education is relevant across multiple age groups, mirroring the developmental stages of place identity categorized by David Sobel in 1999 (Vickers and Matthews 2002, 17-21). Young children aged 4 to 7 are in the stage of “Empathy: Finding Animal Allies” during a life stage in which the home and school are the sum and total of a child’s world. Connection can be piggybacked onto the natural empathy for creatures during this stage, fostering feelings of ecological sensitivity and healing. The second stage during the ages 7 to 11, “Explorations: Teaching the Landscape,” focuses first on familiar immediate places and then expands into the child’s relevant community and world. Learners can then move to the third phase of social action, David Sobel called, “Saving the Neighborhood” (ages 12 and beyond).
In this stage, the learners’ interest concentrates on social connections, themselves, their peers, and society (Sobel 1999). In this theoretical approach, students ages four to fifteen understand the natural environmental conditions and issues based on their developmental level. David Sobel (1999) contends that introducing environmental issues heavy with worry and forecasts of problems causes a disconnect for the learner, instead of a joyful embrace resulting from the intentional planning of stage-suitable projects. Rather, projects should be presented to avoid casual and dispassionate concerns about issues. Kathryn Matteson, in her 2008 inquiry, “Too Young for Rainforests?” studied elementary children and the concept of the depletion of the rainforests in their curriculum. Results indicated that students were not more appreciative of nature after the unit, nor empowered to protect it.
The factor most supportive of increased appreciation and lessened fear of nature was time spent in nature. Like Sobel (1995), Matteson’s study points to the need for developmental appropriateness in offering classroom content on distant and unfamiliar environmental questions (Matteson 2008). A sense of place should matter to students and educators. Place-based education extends the paradigm of what we know outward and reconnects the school to the world in personal, cultural and contextual ways. Under the strategic umbrella of the promise of place, the following five inquiries in place-based education are offered as exemplars of authentic experiences with students from preschool through university teacher education candidates. The key principles, or the “big ideas,” of place and place-based instruction are incarnate in these projects.
They have: 1) an intentional focus on the context and the resources surrounding the learner; 2) authentic and dynamic discoveries using the process of inquiry; 3) expanded perspectives through connections to and participation in one’s local and global community. The following multi-faceted projects are reflective of the progressing ages, developmental levels, and demographics of multiple settings, yet find commonality in the principles of the place-based education. The curricula project designs include: preschoolers in Lawrence, Massachusetts investigating local bridges that lead to design and construction of their own bridge; kindergarten children in Merrimack, New Hampshire exploring beaver dams that emerged from children’s questions and curiosity; elementary children in Antigua, West Indies using critical thinking to explore and compare sand samples from local beaches; high school students using constitutions and fundamental government documents to engage in globalism and cultural perspectives; and, university teacher education candidates in Fitchburg, Massachusetts building “fairy houses” to reconnect with nature and stimulate strategies for teaching with outdoor play and creativity.
Bridges in Lawrence, MA. Promises Place for Preschoolers Photo may accompany this section Lawrence, Massachusetts is an old mill town resting on the Merrimack River in New England, formally established in the 1800’s. Because of the water, waterways, and the dams built for the textile industry, a number of bridges were constructed to cross the Merrimack River. There are approximately forty-two bridges throughout the city that have become part of the natural and immediate environment for the children in the Greater Lawrence Community Action Council, Inc. Head Start. The children and their families cross one or more of the bridges every day by either walking or riding in cars or buses.
A small bridge located near one of their schools generated a sense of wonder for the children in one of the classrooms. Children aged three to five made observations of the bridge as they took a walk in the neighborhood, exemplifying Sobel’s first stage of place connection in which the child’s world encompasses his home and school (Sobel 1999). Questions emerged quickly: How were the bridges built? What are they made of? How are they different? How are they the same? How are they used? Why are they here? How old are they? Do they have a name? ….So began the exploration of their place.
These early investigations of their immediate environment led children to expand their study to other bridges in the city. Teachers carefully engineered the opportunities that would maximize the children’s curiosities and intentional learning outcomes for the concepts that would be developed. The children walked the full span of several bridges and carefully explored and documented the various elements and structure of each one: the materials used to make the bridge, the types of railings, the length, the height, the ornamentation, the land and plants surrounding the bridges. By going over and under bridges, the children gained experience from many perspectives of the bridge and its environment. They took field trips by bus to different locations in the city, focusing on structure and design of larger and longer bridges. i-pad photos were used to document the features of the bridges they visited and were used in the classroom to foster further discussion and make comparisons.
Exploring the city’s bridges helped to answer some of the children’s original questions. From their visits to the longer bridges that crossed the Merrimack River, they learned of the early textile industry through their observations of the mills located near the water. These buildings now house other businesses and the city’s economic outlook has changed. However, the children determined that the usefulness of the bridges to cross over the water was still necessary. Their questions about names for the bridges, dates they were built, and the presence of some ornamentation, were satisfied during their field trips and their community walks. They documented the information. Because of the age range of the children, they merely considered the bridges “old” and did not identify with most of the bridge names.
Some children knew the name of one Lawrence bridge, the Duck Bridge, because it was closed for repair and was not being used for travel. When they discovered rust on some of the other bridges they questioned if rust was the reason the Duck Bridge needed renovation. They researched what caused rust and compared the types of materials used to construct bridges to see which bridges could rust. In the classroom, using photos and with the examples of bridges that were investigated, children designed and collaboratively built bridges from materials of various sizes and textures including blocks, wood, concrete, and bricks. They had brought back pictures and ideas of bridge design that they had learned on their community trips. The materials they were using in the classroom were compared to what they had discovered about real bridges.
The children also explored balance, size, shape, stability, weight and other design dimensions. In building their own bridges, questions led to deeper understanding when posed with challenges such as the width of the bridge needed for passing cars. Indeed, the children actually defined the nature of a “bridge” through their building opportunities and were given the chance to determine if other structures fit the description. Having drawn a design based on their observations, the children initiated the building of a large bridge on the playground of the school. Then, assisted by one person from the agency’s personnel, they actively participated in completing the bridge’s construction. Ultimately the investigation intrigued the children for four months. The study of bridges was documented and presented as a unit entitled, “Watch Us Become Civil Engineers.”
During this time, a Lawrence bridge built in 1888, the Duck Bridge was scheduled to reopen after three years of repair. The children took a field trip and were there just before the bridge was open for operation, taking their place in the history of their community. They will remember the day the Duck Bridge was re-opened and that they were there. Expanded perspective of their place was accomplished by the children through the physical understanding of bridge construction and usefulness in their own city environment. The design elements allowed them to investigate mathematical dimensions as well as a historical view of bridge design. Focusing on the STEM curriculum concepts promoted authentic learning through in and out of the classroom contexts.
Comprehension and observation of things within the child’s environment proved critical to the children’s realization of who they are and where they live. Conversations with the visiting and participating parents revealed their own interest was sparked by the children’s enthusiasm and level of communication about new concepts. Many families are immigrants to the city, and so they joined the investigation through their children, developing a new appreciation and wonder about their sense of place in Lawrence. The learning outcomes showed the children to be engaged and focused and the teachers energized by the continued interest and questions. The connection through field trips to the bridges and bringing that content back into the classroom contextualized the curriculum. Beaver Dams in Merrimack, NH. Promises Place for Kindergarteners Photo may accompany this section
The power of emergent curriculum lies in its deep connection to learners and their motivation to learn. When children ask questions, this is the opportune time to investigate – seeking answers and more questions in order to optimize learning and understanding. Standards and study objectives can always be tied in imaginative ways to knowledge derived from answering questions generated by learners and become fitting avenues to empathic levels of place understanding. In a Merrimack, New Hampshire kindergarten, several opportunities demonstrate how children learn about their sense of place. One child had found some sticks in a stream near where she lived. These sticks were unusual in that they had seriated markings in rows up and down their length. The child’s mother told her that beavers had chewed the sticks, leaving these marks with their teeth.
After bringing the sticks in for “show and tell,” the class was captivated with the story of the beavers, and the remarkable sticks. An optimal learning moment was born, capitalizing on the place knowledge that beavers were nearby, and utilizing full understanding of Sobel’s first stage in which natural empathy for creatures is an opportune connection (1999). Other children spoke of seeing beavers, and a dam. This led to the question of “what is a beaver dam,” with students, teacher, and families contributing to answers. The curriculum was emerging as intentional learning opportunities were provided for the children both inside and outside the classroom. A hike was organized to walk to the beaver dam that was relatively close to the school. Fiction and nonfiction literature and videos were gathered to use for research and strengthen the children’s understanding of the content.
Children documented what they had learned in journals, sang songs about beavers, completed creative art projects, and enhanced their vocabulary. Sticks, rocks, and foliage were gathered from the school’s environment and were used to fill the media tables with the beaver building materials needed for the creation of beaver dams. Water was poured into the media tables for closer simulation of the beaver’s environment. Inside the classroom, they also pretended they were beavers and moved the sticks around in a blue fabric river. Children’s engagement was key. The kindergarten children’s sense of place was strengthened. They learned that even though the school was located in a busy section of the community there are still areas close by where sticks, rocks, and leaves could be gathered, and beaver dams could be found. The intense, yet stage-suitable, connection they made to beavers will lead to further environmental awareness.
While gathering beaver building materials outside in the school play yard in autumn, children noticed seed pods dropping onto the ground from a nearby tree. Carefully keeping the pods as special items in the classroom, children were amazed that the same tree that had produced seed pods in autumn also had blossoms in springtime. In response to the children’s enquiry, teachers then led a journey through books and online, emphasizing the size and shape of the leaves, revealing that the playground wonder was a honey locust tree. The age-appropriate empathic connection to place and season was accomplished when children waited with great anticipation for the following autumn to see if the seed pods would appear again. At another time during the school year, children wondered how their favorite rock, which they called “Moon Rock,” had gotten onto playground, considering its seemingly immovable size.
After establishing a community connection, a local middle school science teacher explained that the Moon Rock was a piece of New Hampshire granite and she provided an age appropriate description of its formation. The children learned that lava spread throughout the region, cooled, and then a glacier came and broke the lava bedrock into small rocks and stones called “glacial erratics.” She also pointed out that these rocks have been used to create the stone walls that could see nearby, so characteristic of New England.
The children then had an understanding of the source, composition, and appearance of New Hampshire granite, leading to them noticing and understanding other examples of granite in and around their school, such as a granite bench and foundation of their school building. When children investigate their local environment, resources, and history appropriately and with intentional focus of the instructors, they begin to develop a “sense of place” and a connection to their environment simply because these encounters are authentic and dynamic, and use the process of inquiry, expanding perspectives through connections to and participation in the local and global community.
Sand in Antigua, West Indies, Promises Place for Elementary Children Photo may accompany this section Place-based education pedagogical principles in Antigua, West Indies served as an important tool to enhance language learning and collaborative skills, active engagement, and problem solving that resulted in a greater appreciation of the beautiful island and how residents continually pledge to “…safeguard our native land” as stated in the Antigua National Anthem (Richards and Chambers 1981). At the elementary stage of place awareness, children need connection to the familiar, with an expansion toward relevant environs. Without much connection to the world around them, children are less likely to later understand and be concerned for policy initiatives and programs to better surrounding places.
Opportunities to learn from the natural world outside their classrooms helps children toward insights that will be part of responsible, caring adulthood (Smith and Sobel 2013, 97). As part of a consultation and research trip to elementary schools in Antigua, workshops for teachers and lessons for first and second grade children promoted a pedagogical approach in which the goal was to empower teachers to listen to students, to encourage children to take an active role in their learning, problem-solve, and take risks. Place-based education as the theoretical umbrella for the planning became an avenue for teachers and students to take active ownership and stewardship of their learning to benefit their lovely island.
By encouraging the students to learn about Antigua, the hope was that they would become more aware of their surroundings and become more protective of it as they grow into adolescence, the next stage of developmental place awareness (Sobel, 1999). Samples of sand collected from different beaches on Antigua were brought into the classroom for the children to explore and compare. The lesson encouraged the children to think like scientists, discussing and recording what scientists do, working up to the words “investigate” and “observe.” This encounter was a fitting exemplar of the importance of connecting prior knowledge to learned content. In the opening steps, what the children already knew about sand was carefully recorded. Initial responses included more simplistic knowledge such as that sand is on the beach, and can run through one’s fingers.
Further discussion revealed complex concepts showing that the children’s thinking was fairly expansive, demonstrating a solid relation to the role that sand played in the life of the island. Children offered that sand is used in making glass and concrete; that when the wind blows, sand stings the skin; sand can take a shape; and turtles bury their eggs in sand. Also discussed were skills children might need to work in teams: cooperation, listening, collaboration, and correct use of the materials. For example, the children had not used magnifying glasses before, and were attempting to use them the way much younger inexperienced children would, by holding them directly in front of the eye. The hands-on exploration of the material built and also capitalized on the familiar prior schema, and expanded to new connections, integrating social studies, science, and language domains.
Children first used a craft stick, magnifying glass, and a paper plate to sift through and observe closely a provided sample of sand. Some of the students questioned whether the sand was from Antigua saying that it was unlike the sand on the beaches with which they were familiar. Pairs of children shared their findings, reporting descriptions of the first sample as, “crunchy,” “like oats,” and “makes noise when you mix it.” The children were then given a second sample of sand, which elicited far different descriptions. The second sample was smooth and cool to the touch, and more like what they associated with sand from the beach. When the information was provided that the two samples were, indeed, from an Antiguan beach near the school and both samples were from the very same beach, the children problem solved and postulated explanations for the contrast in texture.
Through this hands-on discovery method and intentional focus on the context of the materials surrounding these learners, a dynamic process evolved in which the children decided that the two samples were from different distances from the tide line, the pounding surf causing the textural change. Several children discovered that pounding on the sand with a spoon could mimic this process, giving them authentic connection to place, and expanding perspective on their local community resources. This lesson was the perfect exemplar of Sobel’s second stage of place connection in which 7 to 11 year olds explore their landscape, first focusing on the familiar, then expanding to the community (1999). A summation of the lesson included the children’s words, “Today we were scientists. We observed and investigated sand.”
Outside the school after the lesson, children were anxious to show the workshop instructors sand in the grass areas of the school yard and demonstrate ways to make “patties,” or shapes with the material, using the terms and collaborative methods from the lessons in their pursuit of ideas for solving their problem. Interestingly, the following day, the same materials and format were presented to a group of first and second grade teachers from the same community in a workshop on place-related teaching methods as an impetus to non-fiction literacy instruction. Most of the teachers shared the reaction of the children, saying that the sand was unfamiliar to them. They were not only sincerely surprised by the two sands being from the same beach, but incredulous at the deep relation to the place that the children had shown through their prior knowledge, observations, and problem solving. The promise of place and the appropriate developmental presentation of content in this lesson for children provided a theoretical and practical exemplar for these teachers in integrated, active, and place-based instructional design.
Constitutions and Fundamental Documents Promise the Cultural Context of Place for High School Students in Nashua, NH Illustration (graphic organizer) may accompany this section
In the realm of history and social studies for children 12 and over, place-focused instruction is the ultimate in integrated social studies learning. It not only engages many elements of STEM, but this type of content focus is a win-win for students and teachers alike, connecting the real-world, uniting ideas and values with the physical, and building understandings of globalism and globalization. In secondary classrooms, using current constitutions from different international countries offers the opportunity for introduction to the intellectual concepts and values of those nations as well as their governments. It allows the teacher to not only help children analyze the basic concepts and values found in these documents but to then provide a segue for a deeper student examination of those countries’ governments, histories, life-styles, economics, and more. Comparing and contrasting requires reading literacy, conceptual analysis, and critical thinking. An importance of this study would be understanding these countries for themselves; there being no one right model.
Appreciating each “place” – its uniqueness, culture, values, institutional structures, and similarities– enhances learning about others, and also one’s own smaller community. The opportunity to go beyond the “iceberg surface learning” is there. What are the perceptions projected by the document words and what is the reality of the implementation of those words/concepts? This project reflects the third level of Sobel’s development of place awareness, in which adolescents move to social action, interest in social connections not only between themselves and peers, but connecting outward to the workings of society (Sobel 1999). To facilitate this learning in the classroom, various graphic organizers were used. The whole class may be required to read and analyze each of the preambles of multiple constitutions or the class may be organized into teams with each team assigned a different constitutional preamble. The selection of constitutions and numbers is open.
The classroom teacher with Socratic questioning may direct student focus toward that other “place” rather than the student’s own community. For example, the US Constitution’s Preamble states six goals that the people are establishing for its government in order to create a more perfect union. With some similar sentiments but greater emphasis on entitlements, the German Basic Law’s Preamble recognizes the fundamental rights and responsibilities of all German people and commits to working for world peace. In contrast, the Bulgarian Constitution’s Preamble focuses on three areas, i.e. universal individual human values and rights, duty to and for the government, and the creation of its government. Each country has taken a different path to their current government as established by their constitution. The preamble connects to the study of the constitutions themselves which may lead to an ethnographic study of each country.
Another way “place” helps to connect the physical with globalization in a secondary lesson would be to use an excerpt from chapter 12 of Thomas Friedman’s book The World is Flat, in which he describes the ordering and the manufacturing sources for his Dell laptop computer (Friedman 2006). Having students use a map to note every country involved in the creation and delivery of Friedman’s computer will help students visualize the number of countries. A chart that asks learners to list the computer part/service and country will also help them to understand the economics of globalization as well as interconnection of geography.
Implementation of the place-based approach in this example uses the environment of the student, his/her own constitution as the focus for learning, and deepens understanding of the geographic location as well as the people and customs of the place of the familiar as well as the foreign place by contrast and comparison. The promise of place thereby gradually widens from the home to the world, enabling students, through their experiences, to become more responsible societal participants.
The connections drawn to other humans by place-based lessons produces the natural result of seeing the other side of the worldview, increasing association with and compassion for other people (Sweeney 2012, 57).
Fairy Houses in Fitchburg, MA Promise Place for University Teaching Candidates Photo may accompany this section A beginning shift in focus to place-based learning lies with teacher education reflecting this framework. Dubel and Sobel (2008, 131-141) call for teachers to be stewards of the community by modeling community consciousness in the classroom. Using place-based education as an umbrella of instructional choices, teachers can develop and sharpen learners’ understanding of unfamiliar circumstances and surroundings. This outreach to the community, while providing solid connection for children, creates a dual benefit—children’s tangible learning and assistance to the surrounding locality—a small investment for a large payoff of influence (Evans and Kilinc 2013, 268).
Teacher education programs should provide a nested curriculum of lessons exemplifying integrated domains, engaging students in active inquiry, thereby showing, rather than telling, the teaching candidates how to conduct effective instruction for children. At Fitchburg State University in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, students in the education courses leading to classroom teacher licensure take a combined science and social studies course in several concentrations, including early childhood and special needs education, preschool through 8th grades. At the risk of over-simplifying the idea of “hands-on” activity in the classroom, students in this course are brought to deeper understanding through the enactment of and access to the feelings and associations with which they will instruct their own students.
Creating whimsical fairy houses from natural materials derived from the immediate surroundings is a tradition in New England. Using stumps, branches, mosses, sticks, acorns, shells, feathers, and other natural materials, children (and adults, too) fashion small dwellings in wooded areas hoping to attract a resident fairy creature. The tradition was popularized by a series of books starting with Tracy Kane’s “Fairy Houses,” which related the story of a child building a fairy house in Maine, and her dream of meeting the ethereal creatures (Kane 2001).
Far beyond the engagement and absorption the teacher finds with building fairy houses with children, the teaching students themselves report a calmness and centering from this activity. They are inspired. The awareness of the environment and promotion of outdoor play allows for “seeing” the environment in new ways. Can a seed pod become a fairy hammock? Can tree bark become the house roof? What can be used to make a table? A bed? With this perspective on the functionality of resources comes another awareness: that of the life itself embodied in nature, for the rules of fairy house building stipulate that nothing can be killed to make the house. The traditional protocol dictates: Do not disturb what’s living. Use only natural materials, and make the house blend into the surroundings. The child, the teacher, become aware through the activity of the living systems involved and this sensibility to the sustainable cycle of life fosters compassion and empathy (Sweeney 2012, 60).
The child and teacher in their awareness of the diversity and complexity of nature start to see themselves from a personal perspective of belonging to nature’s cycle (Sweeney 2012). Piaget recognized the idea of linking prior learning to new learning, contending that each child has a natural belief that all things are connected (Piaget 1959). Richard Louv introduced the idea that Nature Deficit Disorder results from a disconnect of nature from people’s lives. Families and classrooms miss the beautiful and peaceful effect of working within nature (Louv 2008).
Both undergraduate and graduate students at Fitchburg State formed groups, brought materials, and devoted class time to create fairy houses on the campus in the wooded areas surrounding the education department laboratory school. Students made both simple and elaborate structures, sometimes developed stories around the features of the house, and linked the various houses of the teams. Discussion after the “tour” of houses elicited insight on the effect of the creation process as a product of the New England environment and the time of year. In this fall edition of the lesson, very few blooming flowers appeared, but acorns and shells were evident. Participants saw the larger picture of the way in which the creations revealed the living style and time period of the architects. In essence, the houses reflected the students’ concepts of home and place within their time, and fostered discussion of these perceptions.
For example, in other cultures, would a hot tub made from chips of mica have appeared to woo the fairies? Students and children also find the continued monitoring of the fairy houses after construction to be a lesson in the effects of changes of seasons and weather. The children in classrooms maintaining fairy houses also see changes wrought by neighborhood animals and can speculate on the culprit having licked the salt cakes or stolen the berries left for the fairies. Of course, part of the tradition of the activity itself is that the fairies value the interaction with the animals, and so that system dynamic is reinforced and appreciated. Student teachers also commented on the applicability of the experience for children with special needs and the integration possibilities of literacy, science, social studies, and social skill lessons. It touches on environmentalism, respect for wildlife, observation, artistic creativity, imagination, and connections to place.
Fairy houses have been used as a place-focused lesson format in multiple settings with multiple age groups by this paper’s authors—classrooms of young children, college students, adults, and various demographics. The sensibility of place was exemplified in the adjustment of the “fairy house” lesson terminology in Antigua, and Lawrence, Massachusetts when cultural traditions of some participants prevented the use of the term “fairies.” In Antigua the houses were for “Keepers of the Earth,” and encouraged the children to learn about their island, to know the bountiful trees and plants and their rainforest, becoming more aware and protective of their environment as they grew. The experience became the ultimate example of Sobel’s (1999) progression of place awareness in that the college student teachers were brought to understanding of the overarching role that the stage-appropriate lesson design could play in place-based pedagogy for the children they teach, while the children themselves would find the familiar around them and then the expanded perspective of the promise of place.
Summary The five projects discussed have illustrated the promise of place in classroom instruction, reinforcing the principles of place as a focus of learning and lesson design. They all focus on the context and the resources surrounding the learner and this focus is an intentional direction with consideration of developmental appropriateness of place-based content. Transcending “hands-on” activity done solely for the sake of manipulation, these projects touch the soul and heart and brain and empathic will. They are all authentic and dynamic discoveries using the process of inquiry. Finally, they all expand perspectives of custom, geography, people, and the meaning of home through connections to and responsible participation in one’s own world, both near and far.
