Place-based education

The best teaching occurs when the emphasis is less on imparting knowledge and more on joining the child on a journey of discovery. 

                                                –David Sobel

Place-based education is the process of using the local community and environment as a starting point to teach concepts in language arts, mathematics, social studies, science & other subjects across the curriculum. Emphasizing hands-on, real-world learning experiences, this approach to education increased academic achievement, helps students develop stronger ties to their community, enhances students’ appreciation for the natural world, & creates a heightened commitment to serving as active, contributing citizens. David Sobel, director of the Center for Place-based Education at Antioch University New England, is one of the founders of the place-based movement. He writes of the process, “If we want children to flourish, to become truly empowered, then let us allow them to love the earth before we ask them to save it.”

Jerome Bruner, a social psychologist concerned with motivating and educating students, developed the theory of a spiral curriculum. A spiral curriculum teaches a subject at successively higher grade levels in an increasingly abstract manner. Bruner argues that any subject can be taught effectively in some intellectually honest form to any child at any stage of development. If teachers begin teaching the foundations of these subjects in an appropriate manner consistent with the pupils’ intellectual levels, students can learn important basics at any stage of mental development. Then, by applying the principles of the spiral curriculum, they can steadily proceed to more complex forms of the subject.

Sobel argues that one major problem associated with environmental education is premature abstraction. We teach too abstractly, too early. Ecophobia is a fear of ecological problems & the natural world. As with any phobic reaction, the afflicted person feels unspecific anxiety and wants to flee from the situation. The problem, Sobel argues, will diminish with a more child-centered approach to environmental education. He writes, “My fear is that our environmentally correct curriculum will end up distancing children from, rather than connecting them with, the natural world. The natural world is being abused and they just don’t want to have to deal with it.”

Place-based education is largely prescriptive, designed to combat ecophobia. The theory understands the community and nature as a place for learning and relies on the uniqueness of a place – its art, culture, environment, history – to help students develop their “sense of place,” or community identity. It encourages hands-on, project-based outcomes that have real world application and honor the developmental stages.

I’m more interested in figuring out how to cultivate relationships between children and trees in their own backyards as a precursor to their working to save rain forests as they get older, when they can actually do something about it. Talking to trees and hiding in trees precedes saving trees. 

                                                                                 –David Sobel

Learn more:

Beyond Ecophobia

An essay by David Sobel, Beyond Ecophobia is reproduced in part on this page.

Healthy Kids, Healthy Forests

An example of a place-based educational program in Montana. You will also find information about "park prescriptions" linked to this page. (A park prescription is a partnership between healthcare and park professionals focused on increasing physical activity in the outdoors as a way to promote health.)

Where Nature Meets Story

Stories about animals, plants, and wild places can be a big part of helping kids connect to nature. This page on the Children & Nature Network site guides educators and parents to enrich their experiences in the natural world with literature.

Compiled by Erin E. Anderson