Educators are increasingly turning to innovative teaching methods that transcend the traditional classroom setting. Place-based education and nature-based education are two such approaches that are often considered together. Let’s take a look at what each entails and how they interrelate.
Place-Based Education: Learning Grounded in the Local Community
Place-based education is all about diving into the local community’s ecology, culture, and economy to teach various subjects, making their learning journey relevant and engaging. The Teton Science Schools’ Place Network Learning Framework highlights some key elements of place-based education:
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- Using learner-centered instructional practices to make content relevant and engaging,
- Integrating core content with place,
- Reframing the community as classroom, considering issues at scales of place from local to global, and engaging with the local community, and
- Developing student self-efficacy related to community impact through inquiry, design thinking, and project-based learning.
Nature-Based Education: Embracing the Outdoors for Holistic Learning
Nature-based education is a subset of place-based education but with a distinct emphasis on the natural world. It encourages students to spend time outside, exploring ecosystems and diving into environmental science hands-on. Key components of nature-based education include outdoor learning experiences, environmental stewardship, and interdisciplinary learning.
The Interconnection: Where Place-Based Meets Nature-Based
These two approaches overlap significantly, enriching student learning through direct engagement with their surroundings. Here’s how they complement each other:
- Contextual Relevance: Both make education more meaningful by connecting it to real-world contexts. Learning activities can provide tangible examples of concepts learned in class.
- Engagement and Motivation: By connecting lessons to the natural and social environments students live in, both approaches boost engagement and motivation. A student is more likely to be excited about learning when it involves a trip to a local river to study ecosystems rather than reading about them in a textbook.
- Holistic Development: Both approaches promote not just academic learning but also emotional, social, and physical development.
- Environmental and Community Stewardship: Both approaches teach students to be active and responsible citizens. Place-based education often involves community projects, while nature-based education emphasizes environmental stewardship. Combined, they foster a sense of responsibility toward both community and environment.
Both place-based and nature-based education are powerful methods for helping students develop strong connections with their communities and the natural world. With the Teton Science Schools Place Network model, we believe in integrating the essential elements of nature-based education with a more comprehensive understanding of the many facets of place—also including cultural and economic aspects, and along a spectrum of time from history and into the future. For more information about how your school can begin using a place-based approach, email professionallearning@tetonscience.org.