For this blog post I reviewed an article I read regarding place-based learning. The article discusses how nature studies can be a great way to engage students’ inherent curiosities to allow for them to connect to their local environment. This part of it seems quite intuitive, however what I found very interesting was the mention that from having a local appreciation of nature, the transition to investigating nature nationally and internationally becomes easier. This again shows that local is the best place to begin when doing any sort of scientific inquiry. The examples of live labs in the local river areas that is mentioned is similar to my current idea of taking my Environmental Science classes into Stanley Park. Just like the class mentioned in the article investigating the characteristics of their local environment, I would have my class do the same! It was nice to get some encouragement that place based learning is a great way to engage students and facilitate their interests and relationship with the local environment.
Resource from: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/20440205.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A0995ac45deb59cdf3077e43f8e0111a8