This nested case study inquires about the partnership between primary school teachers and local actors within the wood industry to perform a place-based educative lesson in the Swiss region of Gruyère Pays-d’Enhaut. Five different cases relate the encounter between a teacher and a local actor and enable the description of the particularities and outcomes of such partnerships. After observing activities and interviewing the members of the partnerships, the researcher analyzes the data by comparing the cases and using a Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) model to describe the system of activity resulting from the partnership.  The study reveals that a win-win effect is present in the partnership teacher/local actor, despite some tensions regarding the role of the members. While the teacher is using the partnership as a valuable resource to create a succession of meaningful experiences for learning, the local actor is using it to get some recognition for his work and share his message within the community. This implies requestioning the role of school in society, as the institution becomes helpful not only for the young generation but also to empower the local community and its cohesion.   Outcomes in terms of experiential learning are discussed, along with the processes of decolonization and reinhabilitation inherent to the approach. The relevance of such partnership is also discussed as a tool to implement Environmental and Sustainable Education (ESE), as the findings reveal its great potential for working on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and issues that concern the local community, englobing the values expressed by its members. The crucial role of the teachers to ensure the adequacy of the approach is enhanced.

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This study explores how local community economic development actors in rural settings view prospects for bottom-up (i.e., endogenous) development through a case study of the Keremeos area in British Columbia. The study involved a basic descriptive analysis of the case study site drawing upon Statistics Canada data, historical records and local policy documents along with 11 semi-structured interviews of local development actors representing the varied geographic, jurisdictional and organizational interests comprising the Keremeos area development landscape. The findings indicate that not only do predominant institutional arrangements presuppose and eventuate rural inferiority and decline, they also tend to impose externalities for rural communities to contend with while failing to provide similar measures of in-kind support to mitigate such impacts. This stokes an erroneous sentiment that local government is responsible for precipitating endogenous development, limiting the extent to which community members work to actively operationalize it as a result. Such conditions ultimately lead rural communities to have no choice but to challenge predominant institutional arrangements in order to forge their own paths for realizing endogenous development. Indigenous communities offer hope for rural areas through increased guardianship programs and industry partnerships which help to challenge and rearticulate these arrangements to the advantage of their communities and interests. It is advisable that senior government work to provide rural communities with capacity to facilitate their own economic viability – reflecting local values, knowledge, identity and autonomy – thus working to counter the externalities and parameters which they and prevailing market forces have conceived for rural communities to persist within. / Graduate

Learning to value ourselves as uniquely endowed, understanding our irreplaceable fit into the social and environmental fabric, and becoming active agents woven into our communities will maximize our capacity for progressive change through empowerment. There are effective practices in orchestrating learning environments for empowerment that have ancient and proven roots but have become marginalized in contemporary education. These ways focus on fostering the development of unique gifts and group cohesion, as opposed the fostering of independence and competition, the latter being two ideologies not found in Nature when it is in balance and harmony. This reversal in paradigm will reclaim our ability to critically problem-solve and evoke transformative action by increasing the diversity of perspectives and talents focused on an endeavor. Central to this research is an exploration of the strategization involved in supporting cultural, cognitive, and creative capital—the gifts endowed to humankind that enable our co-evolution with this specific regions of this planet. This research explores methods not only of maintaining the integrity of Indigenous voice through the process of research and reporting but also of using science as a tool for building community through a sense of critical Indigenous identity. It is my hope that the data contained in this research will serve as a relevant, without being transferable, model of progressive educational approaches to ameliorate science education on a local, national, and global scale. / Ph. D.

Students' connections to place are important to bring into the classroom to help them make meaning. This multimethod study investigated the overarching research question: What is the influence of a place-based curriculum on high-performing, rural students as writers? This was broken into two sub-questions: (a) What is the effect of treatment condition on students writing ability, writing self-efficacy, and concepts of community and place and (b) In what ways do students reference place in their writing? In particular, this study examined students' writing ability, writing self-efficacy, connections to community/place, and references to place in students' writing. Working from a larger data set from the Promoting PLACE (Place, Literacy, Achievement, Community, and Engagement) in Rural Schools grant, students' pre- and post-test writing tasks, self-report writing self-efficacy, and community and place scales were analyzed using quantitative and qualitative approaches to explore the ways the curriculum supported students as writers. The sample included treatment and control students, randomly assigned at the district level. The treatment group access to the Promoting PLACE curriculum and the control group received the typical services their district provided. Quantitative analysis gave rise to more questions regarding sample size, gifted identification methods, and modes of instruction. Qualitative analysis gave insight into the importance of connecting to place in the classroom, so students can explore the richness of their rural places. Using a dialogic stance, with place-based pedagogy can provide students with opportunities to critically examine their places and the experiences they have in those places. / Doctor of Philosophy / This study explored how a dialogic, place-based curriculum influences high- performing rural students as writers. The sample included treatment and control students, randomly assigned at the district level, totaling 199 students across both groups. Through quantitative and qualitative analysis, the researcher examined student pre- and post-test writing tasks and self-report writing self-efficacy and community and place scales. Findings suggest that adopting a stance that in the classroom that values students’ lived experiences provides opportunities for students to make meaning using what they know and have experienced and critically examining their experiences as members of their local communities. This study provides insight into writing classrooms that embraces student experience and view students as valuable members of their communities.

Thesis advisor: Thomas J. Chemmanur / My dissertation consists of three chapters. In the first chapter, I study the impact of a place-based tax credit policy, the Opportunity Zone program created under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, on local private investments and entrepreneurship. Using a difference-in-differences approach and comparing census tracts designated as Opportunity Zones and other eligible but non-designated tracts, I find that the policy has drawn significantly more private investments to economically distressed areas. Surprisingly, however, these private investments have led to decreases in local new business registration. The decrease in entrepreneurship was mainly in the non-tradable sector, which is more sensitive to local conditions than the tradable or construction sector. Further robustness tests suggest that the above results are causal. I provide one explanation for the above findings that more private investments went to existing and older firms in Opportunity Zones, discouraging potential entrepreneurs from competing with the better-financed firms locally. In the second chapter, I examine how changes in investor protection regulations affect local entrepreneurial activity, relying on the heterogeneous impact of a 2011 SEC regulation change on the definition of accredited investors across U.S. cities. Using a difference-in-differences approach, I show that cities more affected by the regulation change experienced a significantly larger decrease in local angel financing, entrepreneurial activity, innovation output, employment, and sales. I find that small business loans and second-lien mortgages became entrepreneurs’ partial substitutes for angel investment. My cost-benefit analysis suggests that the costs of protecting angel investors through the 2011 regulation change outweigh its benefits. In the third chapter, which is co-authored with Thomas Chemmanur and Harshit Rajaiya, we address three important research questions by using a large sample of angel and venture capital (VC) financing data from the Crunchbase and VentureXpert databases and private firm data from the NETS database. First, we analyze the relative extent of value addition by angels versus VCs to startup firms. We show that startups financed by angels rather than VCs are associated with a lower likelihood of successful exit (IPO or acquisition), lower sales and employment growth, lower quantity and quality of innovation, and lower net inflow of high-quality inventors. We disentangle selection and monitoring effects using instrumental variable (IV) and switching regression analyses and show that our baseline results are causal. Second, we investigate the complementarity versus substitution relationship between angel and VC financing. We find that a firm that received a larger fraction of VC or angel financing in the first financing round is likely to receive a larger fraction of the same type of financing in a subsequent round; however, when we include other non-VC financing sources such as accelerators and government grants into the analysis, a firm that received angel (rather than other non-VC) financing in the first round is also more likely to receive VC financing in a subsequent round. Third, we analyze how the financing sequence (order of investments by angels and VCs across rounds) of startup firms is related to their successful exit probability. We find that firms that received primarily VC financing in the first round and continued to receive VC financing in subsequent rounds (VC-VC) or those that received primarily angel financing in the first round and received VC financing in subsequent rounds (Angel-VC) have a higher chance of successful exit compared to those with other financing sequences (VC-Angel or Angel-Angel). / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2022. / Submitted to: Boston College. Carroll School of Management. / Discipline: Finance.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GRSM) provides quality education programs to local schools. In order to continue this success and expand programs to reach more middle and high school students, a mixed methods study was conducted to help better understand why local middle and high school teachers participate or not in park educational programs. Using the Theory of Planned Behavior, teacher surveys measured factors that influence teacher intentions to participate in park programs to best predict their likelihood of future involvement. In addition, school administrators were interviewed to understand their perceptions of teacher involvement. Results provided insight to how GRSM can better provide valuable services to local middle and high schools. The best predictors of teachers' intentions to participate in future programs were their perceptions of whether programs would enhance academic achievement, how easily and comfortably they could incorporate the programs into their pre-existing curricula, and whether the experience would be a fun experience in nature for both their students and themselves. Future communications with teachers should therefore emphasize that Park programs are fun, relevant learning experiences that address academic requirements for various subjects and are relatively easy to incorporate into pre-existing curricula. / Master of Science

Studien har en ämnesövergripande ansats som undersöker lärares utsagor om hur platsbaserat lärande kan möjliggöra utveckling av elevers läs- och skrivförmågor. Ämnesövergripande undervisning innebär att flera ämnen integreras med varandra. Ett platsbaserat lärande innebär att undervisningen utgår ifrån en specifik plats i skolans närområde. Data samlades in genom en enkätundersökning som riktar sig till lärare i grundskolans årskurser F–3. En systematisk analys av materialet har skett där mönster, likheter samt skillnader har identifierats. Enkätundersökningens resultat visar att lärare gärna väver samman läs- och skrivaktiviteter.Exempelvis genom att eleverna får läsa faktatexter om ett djur för att sedan besöka platsen där djuret befinner sig och avslutningsvis skriver eleverna en egen faktatext med hjälp av fotografier från platsen. Vidare belyser resultatet att de flesta lärare arbetar ämnesövergripande utifrån ett tematiskt arbetssätt. Ekonomiska aspekter redovisas som handlar om bland annat för få resurser, för lite planeringstid och dyra transporter. Det framgår att lärare gärna vill använda ett platsbaserat lärande men att deras kunskaper om hur det ska genomföras på ett strukturerat och givande sätt kan utvecklas. Lärare uttrycker att de önskar bättre förutsättningar för ett platsbaserat lärande samt även möjligheter till vidare utbildning inom området. På så sätt, menar lärarna, kan platsbaserat lärande inkluderas i undervisningen. / The study adopts an interdisciplinary approach, investigating teachers' statements on how place-based learning can facilitate the development of students' reading and writing skills. Interdisciplinary teaching involves the integration of multiple subjects. Place-based learning is based on a specific location within the school's vicinity as the foundation for instruction. Data were collected through a survey directed at teachers of primary school grades F–3. A systematic analysis of the material was conducted, identifying patterns, similarities and differences. The survey results indicate that teachers often integrate reading and writing activities by, for example, reading factual texts about an animal, visiting the location where the animal resides and subsequently having students write their own factual texts using photographs from the location. Furthermore, the results highlight that most teachers employ interdisciplinary methods based on thematic teaching. Economic aspects are also discussed, including insufficient resources, inadequate planning time and costly transportation. It is evident that teachers are keen to use place-based learning, but their knowledge on how to implement it in a structured and beneficial manner can be enhanced. Teachers express a desire for better conditions for place-based learning as well as opportunities for further education in this area. According to the teachers, such improvements would enable the inclusion of place-based learning in their instruction.

Lesson plans were developed in order to address the inter-disciplinary nature inherent in environmental education by drawing on place-based learning approaches and relating natural and human made aspects of watershed dynamics.

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Mary Catherine (Katie) Kingery-Page / Recent development and adoption of Common Core State Standards has shifted academic emphasis within public and accredited schools. Consistent, national educational goals have standardized education and have resulted in a challenge to educators to assist all students in achieving maximum test scores. The curricular subjects of math, science, and literacy are the primary emphasis of instruction and achievement. Standardized testing is the dominant means to determine whether students are reaching acceptable achievement. “Integrated Common Core Curriculum: Environmental Education Through Landscape Architecture” explores the potential of incorporating basic landscape architectural knowledge into a fourth-grade curriculum while striving to achieve learning standards as determined by the Common Core and the Iowa Core Curriculum. Exploring the application of current educational criteria, the researcher developed an educational unit that utilizes the process of park design as a simplified version of a landscape architect’s approach in order to emphasize math, literature, science, creative thinking, and teamwork. Implementing environmental education through place-based education theory enhances unit strength by providing enhanced emotional, mental, and physical health benefits to children. Created during this study, an instructional unit was evaluated by a convenience sample of educators. Through the use of an open-ended questionnaire, preliminary review results indicate a strong potential for the unit to successfully demonstrate the basic process of landscape architecture design through the use of the local place simultaneously achieving academic standards. Review results identify a variety of limitations and challenges the unit would encounter for implementation including a current subject focused instructional philosophy within the school district verse the thematic focus of the unit. Additionally, ever-evolving standards would require regular unit updates, although school districts face perennial budget challenges and educators are limited on time. As a student of landscape architecture, I recognize that the profession offers a unique opportunity to model place-based, multi-subject practices realized in the practice of landscape architecture. Promoting the profession of landscape architecture through a curricular unit provides an environmental education tool and provides the opportunity for students to explore a career option within the classroom setting.