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Jul

5

The Importance of Deep Experiences in Nature

Filed Under Activities, Outdoor education, Perspectives, Place-based Education | Leave a Comment

Cornell1By Joseph Cornell

Profound moments with nature foster a true and vital understanding of our place in the world. I remember an experience I had as a five-year-old boy that awakened in me a life-long fascination for marshes, birds, and for a life lived wild and free.

I was playing outside on a cold, foggy morning when I suddenly heard a startling chorus of “whouks” coming toward me through the air. I peered intently at the thick fog, hoping for at least a glimpse of the geese. Seconds passed; the tempo of their cries increased. They were going to fly directly overhead! I could hear their wings slapping just yards above me. All of a sudden, bursting through a gap in the fog, came a large flock of pearl-white snow geese. It seemed as if the sky had given birth to them. For five or six wonderful seconds their sleek and graceful forms were visible, then they merged once again into the fog. Seeing the snow geese thrilled me deeply, and ever since then I have wanted to immerse myself in nature. Read more

Apr

26

New Film: Lessons from the Real World

Filed Under Citizen scientists, Place-based Education, Service learning, Videos | Leave a Comment

Lessons From The Real World, a one hour documentary about innovative education in Portland Schools, will air on all Oregon Public Broadcasting television stations on Friday, May 6, at 11:00 PM.

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Apr

7

From Screens to Streams: Using Technology as a “Bridge” to the Outdoors

Filed Under Citizen scientists, Environmental Literacy, Marine/Aquatic Education, Place-based Education, Programs, Science, Social studies, Sustainability, Technology | Leave a Comment

EricBeck
Rather than viewing technology as an enemy of environmental literacy, technology-based learning can help cultivate an environmental sensibility by serving as a “bridge” to the outdoors.

By Ryan Johnson

When I was ten years old, I was absolutely obsessed with the original Nintendo Entertainment System. My cousins had one, my best friend had one, it seemed like everyone I knew had a Nintendo. I would have done just about anything to have one as well, but my parents refused, despite my continuous complaints and numerous solicitations.

I thought I was the most neglected ten-year-old child in the world, while my parents, patiently suffering my pleas, would remind me that the Beartooth, Big Horn, and Pryor Mountains, the McCullough Peaks, and Shoshone River were just beyond my doorstep. These natural features were, in fact, truly magnificent and unavoidable constituents of the landscape, dominating every view with snow-capped peaks, granite cliff faces, rainbow-colored bluffs, and crystal clear riffles, containing everything from wild horses to Grizzly Bears to rattlesnakes. Now, perhaps needless to say, I prize every single second I am able to gaze upon the mountains and deserts of northern Wyoming, and I cherish every memory of running through alpine forests and mountain biking through tumbling sage brush. But a conscious acknowledgement of my privilege of being born into such natural wonder eluded me, and as a result I still found modern, escapist forms of entertainment media seductive. Even in a place completely dominated by mountains, peaks, rivers, valleys, prairie, and high desert, I still found a way to explore MTV far more often than Heart Mountain. Read more

Mar

2

Reassessing the value of place-based learning: an online discussion

Filed Under David Greenwood, Gregory Smith, Perspectives, Place-based Education | Leave a Comment

The following is part of an on-line discussion between Greg Smith, Associate Professor at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, and David Greenwood, Associate Professor at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario Canada.

gregsmith

Dear David,
I’ve been puzzling over an issue to raise with you for another blog entry, and I’ve found myself coming back to the impact that hierarchies of knowledge and skill have on the use of learning opportunities encountered in local communities and places.  I recall this issue coming up with a friend in Madison, Wisconsin, more than a decade ago when his daughter was junior at the city’s most academically competitive high school—probably the same one you went to.  She was interested in enrolling in a “chemistry in the community” course that would have allowed her to experience a more hands-on and problem-solving approach to science education.  Her counselor discouraged her from doing so on the grounds that the kinds of colleges she was interested in attending would see this as a deficit.  Jim, a biology professor committed to learning in the field, disagreed and wrote to academics at around a dozen colleges similar to those his daughter hoped to apply to and asked whether they agreed with the counselor.  None did.  His daughter enrolled in the course and ended up going to Earlham.  Most students and parents, however, seem unlikely to challenge the counselor’s advice because of the way it represents common understandings about prestigious (theoretical and text-based) knowledge and less prestigious (applied and practical) knowledge.  This seems like a fundamental issue we’ve got to address if we hope more educators begin to incorporate lived experience into the forms of instruction they share with students. Read more

Feb

17

A While in the Wild: Educating for Environmental Empathy

Filed Under Place-based Education, Programs | Leave a Comment

Experiences in wild nature, the leadership of a significant adult, and the educational support of the classroom offer powerful tools in shaping students toward lifelong leadership in environmental stewardship.

In the grassSMby Fay Mascher M.Ed., Cayley School
Jonas Cox Ph.D., Gonzaga University
Charles Salina Ph.D., Gonzaga University

On a visit to the coulee, a startled owl exploded off of a nest that we thought was empty. On the bus ride back to school, one boy reached for my hand, “Feel my heart,” he said. “It’s still going really fast.” –from the Cayley School action research project

Since the 1980’s, researchers in environmental education have explored this basic question: Why do some people care about the natural environment enough to protect it, while others do not?  Current environmental education, taught as a unit of instruction within the science curriculum, tends to assume that imparting information about the environment will inspire students to care for it. But a generation of young people educated in this way has not yielded a generation of adults committed to caring for the natural world. Read more

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