Jennifer Mikhli
Professor Adams
October 12, 2013
Science and Technology in NYC
The article entitled “Learning in Your own Backyard: Place-based Education for Museums,” by Janet Petilpas, Salles Russell-Ciardi, Lori Salles, and Mary Jo Sutton explores the realm of place-based education. It describes three examples, two of them geared towards educating science, while one promotes historical learning. The Turtle Bay Exploration Park offers such a place-based curriculum, allowing people to explore the 300-acre campus and engage in activities “that interpret the relationship between humans and nature,”(50) as is noted in the article. Visitors can engage in sights such as the far-reaching roots of an oak tree. This knowledge can then be applied to future situations, such as lessons in soil erosion. The reason that educational situations like this one, along with other placed-based curriculums, are so effective is because of the tangibility that it offers for learners. This real experience of observing these sturdy tree roots serves as a connecting tool upon which other scientific knowledge can be applied. This connects back to the interactivity strategy of informal science learning, as well as the connecting category of perceptual talk. Walking through the Turtle Bay Park Museum allows onlookers to interact with the environment around them, sparking their interest, engaging them, and providing them with sense of reasoning that they can later apply to other situations. This can manifest itself with connecting talk that could later occur in a formal setting, where the observation of the tree roots can serve as an earlier experience from which connections to the current lesson can be made.
David A. Gruenewald proposes a blending of the aforementioned placed-based curriculums with critical pedagogy in his article entitled “The Best of Both Worlds: A Critical Pedagogy of Place.” Critical pedagogy from an ecological standpoint promotes the transformation and conservation of the landscapes around us. While this concept is essential, it must first be preceded by a placed-based curriculum, to instill a love for the environment within students and other citizens of the environment. This fosters a sense of empathy for the environment, which can then inspire rehabilitation of it. This is summed up with a quote from Sobel saying, “what’s important is that children […] learn to love it, before being asked to heal its wounds” (7). This relates back to the last strand of science learning: identifying with the scientific enterprise. Through an individual’s bonding with the natural environment, he/she comes to identify him/herself as somewhat knowledgeable in that field of science, allowing him/her to develop a deeper connection with the surroundings that can materialize through learning about ways to help it.
I have seen the interdependent relationship of placed-based learning and critical pedagogy in my own life. From a young age, I, along with dozens of students, have been imbed with the notion of environmental conservation. We are told time and time again, “the environment is important and we must actively promote its preservation!” As I got older, reasons for the importance of the environment were explained in my ninth grade Biology class and once again in Earth Science, as I reached eleventh grade. The message has traveled with me throughout all these years, but had I really internalized the issue? Not quite. It was not until this past summer when I began to form a bond with the outside rural environment, that I fully appreciated all the conservation efforts that were being made. I remember hiking up alongside Kaaterskill Falls and being grateful for the opportunity to gaze upon the waterfall. Along all my hiking trails, I developed an appreciation for the crew of park rangers who were responsible for their upkeep. I recognized myself developing empathy for my environment and wanting to know more about how humans can contribute to environmental upkeep. Really grappling with the dirt and soil around me has inspired me to want to learn more about how I can take a more active effort in preserving the bucolic areas around me. Since then, I have made small changes in my life to reduce my carbon footprint. I pay careful heed to the amount of water that I use daily, remembering to close the faucet as I brush my teeth, and I try to walk more when I can, trying to reduce the amount of car rides I am responsible for. Essentially, my own personal place-based curriculum has allowed me to forge an intimate relationship with mother-nature, transforming me into a “greener” individual.
