Two significant influences on the development of my character, personality, and intellect were my family and physical environment. When I was eight years old (1978), we moved from thick in the city, to eighty barren acres of prairie. It quickly became a farm brimming with every ‘pet’ animal known to childkind – cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys, goats and barn kittens galore! Outside of the traditional education received at Clavet School, I lived a life rich in the harvests of a ‘place-based curriculum’. My community consisted of loving, supportive and moral people, companionable animals and a wide-open prairie playground.
In a conventional school setting, a place-based curriculum is a vibrant approach to education that takes students out into the communities, to learn, to do and to grow as human beings. In a rural environment, this might be an outing to a local dairy; in an urban environment, it may be a walk down to the neighborhood bakery. It can connect curriculum outcomes for many strands of social studies, science, math, health, literature and art. Its pedagogy provides students the opportunity to learn subject matter in tangible living ways, to understand the places they live in, and how to contribute to their communities.Moreover, they often begin a lifelong stewardship for the land (Sobel 2012).
This paper is a critical summary of ‘place-based curriculum’ as positioned by education writer David Sobel. David is a co-director of the Center for Place-Based Education at the Antioch New England Institute. He has published numerous books including Childhood and Nature: Design Principles for Educators (2008), Place-Based Education: Connecting Classrooms and Communities (2004), and Beyond Ecophobia: Reclaiming the Heart in Nature Education (1996)
One critique of traditional product curriculum has been its absence of recognizing context in the delivery of education; such as environment, demographics, socio-economic conditions, and the like. To strengthen and enhance the discussion of place-based curriculum, I will examine indigenous land-based curriculum, and “Reality Pedagogy” by Dr. Christopher Emdin, as these broaden the definition of “place-based curriculum.”
I will flesh out the definitions and ties between indigenous land-based curriculum and place based curriculum. I’ll introduce the subtleties of Emdin’s work, that I feel would enhance the creating and planning of a unit of place-based curriculum. If I can find the resources, I’ll tie it up with a couple critical opinions, if any, of the practice.
Citation:
Sobel, David, et al. “Look, Don’t Touch.” Orion Magazine, 2012, orionmagazine.org/article/look-dont-touch1/.
Ken Chaplin 
This essay sounds like it will be very interesting! I believe there will be some very strong connections between place based curriculum and land based curriculum but also some key differences that separate the two. Good luck!
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Hey, Ken. Place-based learning, and revolving the curriculum around that, is a fascinating subject. It might be interesting to relate this to countries around the world. Their community obviously has an impact on how they go about the curriculum or what they learn. I think it might have a bigger impact on social studies or history topics than anything else. They might learn about thier own land before exploring others. Even in Canada, most of our history is in the European perspective. We don’t really branch out and dig deep into the interesting histories of other countries, or explore and learn about civilizations and empires outside of Europe. It might not impact maths because maths appear to be pretty universal, though I could be wrong. Many Indigenous communities, as well, are connected to their lands and it largely influences the stories children get told and morals they learn to carry with them. It would be interesting to get an article about Indigenous peoples connection to the land and how that impacts their education system. This seems like a fun topic!
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