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.

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

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.

Children have the intrinsic drive to play and be outdoors, as well as the curiosity to explore the world around them (Louv, 2008). Connections and interactions with nature tend to be beneficial for children’s cognitive development, with outcomes ranging from improved cognitive functioning (Wells, 2000) to the development of important academic skills (Miller, 2007). Perhaps more significant though are the positive outcomes among nature, health, and wellbeing (e.g., Taylor & Kuo, 2009), along with the cultivation of environmental appreciation, empathy, and stewardship (e.g., Ewert et al., 2005). Many nature-based early years programs have been developed and adopted around the world, placing emphasis on fostering children’s experiences, interactions, and connections with the natural world. As this global early years phenomenon continues to build momentum, the need to investigate how children are experiencing these nature-based early years programs becomes more pertinent. The purpose of this study was to gain an in-depth understanding of four children’s experiences at a nature-based early years program located in a small town on the outskirts of an Eastern Ontario urban centre. Data were collected using qualitative methodology (observations, photographs, semi-structured interviews, and photo elicitation) and took place over a five-week period in the winter term. Data were analyzed using conventional qualitative means, through open coding and identifying categories and overarching themes (McMillan & Schumacher, 2010). Using Place-Based Education as the theoretical guide, data were explored using three main themes: lived experience; connections to place and to community; and learning, growth, and development. The findings from this research not only illuminate the children’s experiences at a nature-based early years program, but also provide the fertile ground upon which further examination and discussion can grow—an examination and discussion of the significance of nature-based learning as it relates to contemporary education. / Thesis (Master, Education) -- Queen's University, 2013-08-30 10:33:49.614

The purpose of this research study was to explore how the significance of place serves as a part of Indigenous—specifically Diné (Navajo)—education cultural responsiveness in the art classroom. Further, objectives of the study included learning how North American art teacher educators can more effectively weave Indigenous understandings of place into pre-service art teacher education to benefit Indigenous learners' needs. I employed a qualitative approach to this study using multiple methodologies: ethnography, phenomenology, an Indigenous research methodology, and arts-based research. Through personal interviews with six participants—two Diné artists, two art teacher educators, and two unfamiliar art teachers new to reservation-serving schools—I sought to locate culturally situated perspectives and values. The goal of the interviews was to gather ideas about the significance of place, about relationships between place and art, and about art teacher preparation for teaching in Diné-serving schools. The design of the study also included new unfamiliar non-Diné art teacher preconceptions and in-situ learning experiences of teaching on the reservation. Beyond the participant interviews, I engaged an arts-based exploration of my experiences with Diné people as an outsider/insider member of the Diné community. The artwork I created also helped weave together data from participant interviews. Findings from the Diné artist participants suggested that places hold significance in Diné culture, art making, and the display or use of art. According to Diné epistemological perspective, place is more than just a physical location, and different from some mainstream ideas about place. For Diné interviewees, place is a container of aspects of life such as energies, nature, spirits, people, and a multitude of other significances, some tangible and some intangible. Findings from interviews with art teacher educators of other Indigenous groups also indicated that place is significant to many Native American peoples, and the idea of that significance is difficult to transmit to Euro-American pre-service teachers. Interviews also indicate that focusing teaching education on social justice theories and employing Native American art and artists can assist in the preparation of pre-service art teachers to teach in reservation or pueblo communities. However, there are deeply rooted cultural concepts that come into play once the new teacher reaches her/his teaching assignment community. Lastly, findings revealed that new unfamiliar art teachers experience a number of obstacles upon entering Diné communities when their prior understandings about the place is limited. Challenges include understanding acceptable cultural observances, student proclivities, and art making practices. Understanding significance of place, stereotyping concerns, and positionality challenges are among the themes that arose as a result of cross-participant analyses. The implications of this research study advocate for: a) building further knowledge about educating pre-service teachers about cultural relevance, stereotyping, and positionality in Native American-serving art classrooms; b) the need for continued cultural learning and mentoring in-situ; and c) the need for unfamiliar art teachers to develop culturally relevant teaching practices with the help of people in the community.

This case study investigates sense of place of youth amidst a background of change in postapartheid South Africa. As used in this study, sense of place refers to the attachments made to both physical and social places, and the social and cultural interactions and meanings associated with such places. The research was conducted with a group of 13 young adults at Mary Waters Senior Secondary School in Grahamstown. The literature suggests that the changes that occur in the lives of the participants at school-leaving age such as new opportunities to identify with global aspirations, tend to influence their sense of place in local contexts. Social change that occurs due to globalising forces such as access to new technologies and improved personal mobility, also influences sense of place in this context. Another integral factor is the structural influence of changing cultural and educational norms. These notions form part of the backdrop of this study. The research project was developed in response to calls for learning approaches that are situated more in local contexts and which include the youth as intrinsic participants informing environmental education approaches. This research draws attention to the significance of finding sustainable ways that enhance opportunities for agency on the part of the youth in future local and global environmental care-taking. The study took place over a period of 15 months in which time the participants undertook place-based activities in their communities around self-identified environmental concerns. The study was intentionally generative in approach as this allowed the voices of the participants and their environmental perspectives to be considered in developing methods and activities that were suitable to their particular contexts and interests. The study highlights the relevance of particular social contexts, through the perspectives of people and in this case learners, as key to environmental education enquiries. The combination of approaches that consider: a) knowledge about social context, b) the educational intervention (place-based activities) and, c) the situated social capital of the participants, all form the basis of meaningful pedagogical engagements and serve to address my research question: How is learners' sense of place developed and articulated through place-based activities, and what are the implications for environmental education amidst a contemporary landscape of change in South Africa?

Skolgården är en institutionell miljö med normer och regler som de flesta barn och ungdomar vistas i dagligen, då obligatorisk skolgång gäller i Sverige. Skolgårdsmiljöerna utgör del i infrastrukturen av lärandemiljöer utomhus som förekommer i barns och ungas vardag, och förknippas ofta med elevers rastaktiviteter och paus från undervisningen inomhus. Det har dock i mindre utsträckning bedrivits empirisk forskning om skolgården som socialt såväl som pedagogiskt rum och dess betydelse för elevers lärande kopplat till lokalsamhället. Vi avser att med denna studie bidra med kunskap till detta område genom att undersöka hur skolgårdar är utformade och huruvida skolgården tillsammans med det omgivande landskapet skapar förutsättningar för elevers lek och rörelse och för pedagogisk verksamhet, som exempelvis undervisning i växt- och matodling och naturmiljö. Studiens fokus riktas till undersökning av skolgårdars fysiska och materiella utformning. Datainsamling har skett genom observationstillfällen på sex geografiskt spridda grundskolegårdar i Uppsala kommun, innerstad, förort såväl som landsbygd. Bearbetningen av data skedde genom analysprotokoll utifrån en teoretisk tematisering samt bearbetning av fotografier tagna på skolgårdarna. Studiens resultat visade på vissa institutionaliserade värden om vad som ska ske på skolgården – friytor, fysisk aktivitet, sitt- och samlingsplatser, samt ytor för sportaktiviteter. Växtlighet och naturmiljöer var framträdande i varierande grad, och kunde utgöra olika funktioner i respektive skolgårdsrum, som avgränsningar mellan stadier, prydnader eller inramning av skolgården. Ingen av de undersökta skolgårdarna var belägna i naturmiljöer såsom skogsdungar, utan var byggda på utgrävda fundament och konstgjorda terränger, vissa kuperade och med konstgräs. I de fall där det fanns naturmiljöer i närheten fanns det tydliga avgränsningar mellan skolgård och naturmiljö. Vidare var endast en av de undersökta skolgårdarna som på skolgården verkade bedriva skolodlingsprojekt. / School grounds are institutional milieu with certain norms and rules and that most children and youth meet daily, due to mandatory schooling in Sweden. School ground environments are part of children’s and youth spaces of learning environments that occur in everyday life. The aim of this this study is to contribute with knowledge about the school grounds as social and pedagogical space and the school grounds potential to contribute to student learning connected to local community. This we intend by researching how school grounds are designed and how their potential institutional conditionings may convey values of play, physical activity and teaching. This includes pedagogical practices in natural environments as well as plant and food gardening. The focus of the study is directed toward the physical conditions and designs of school grounds, and not students’ interactions with the school grounds. The collection of data was managed through observations studies in six geographically scattered school grounds in the municipality of Uppsala, urban, suburban as well as rural. The processing of data was managed by an analysis protocol created by the theoretical framework of the study, which include aspects of play, physical activity and teaching, and of analysis of photos taken at the school grounds visited for this study. The results of the study showed some institutionalized values on what activities should take place in the school grounds – open spaces of asphalt, physical activity in sport areas were represented, but there were few open spaced with surrounding natural environment such as shrubbery or groves. Natural environments occurred with varying functions – as boundaries between areas intended for students with different ages, as ornaments, or framing of the school grounds facing the surroundings. None of the school grounds observed hade natural environments inside them, as they were built upon artificially made terrain, for example hills and grass. In the school grounds that had natural environments in their proximity, there were clear boundaries made by fences of different sorts. Furthermore there was only one of the observed school grounds that seemed to be conducting outdoor education in terms of gardening.

This case study investigated the potential of a place-based watershed curriculum, using STEM principles, to increase watershed literacy and knowledge of human impacts on stormwater in the environment. A secondary goal was to examine whether the place-based connection and increased exposure to issues within their local watershed impacted the students' environmental attitudes and sense of place. Over 500 sixth graders participated in this localized curriculum, where they learned the science behind watershed issues on their own school campuses. They focused on ways humans can monitor and mitigate their impacts on stormwater, through engineering investigations. The mixed-method research study investigated the effectiveness of the OLWEDU curriculum, to address these key questions: 1) To what degree did the OLWEDU increase the students' combined watershed literacy? 2) To what extent did the OLWEDU affect their environmental attitudes? 3) How did using a STEM oriented and place-based curriculum make the learning more relevant? In order to provide a solid triangulation of data, this study used a quasi-experimental design format with multiple measures: a) A Pre-Posttest (PPT), was given to all of the students to gather quantitative changes in knowledge of watershed concepts, stormwater issues related to human impacts on the environment, and engineering techniques; b) A constructed-knowledge questionnaire (CKQ) was used with forty four of the participants, to gather additional quantitative data on the students' local watershed knowledge; c) an environmental attitudes survey (EAS) was included in this sub-sample group; d) interviews were conducted with ten of the students to examine their opinions on the STEM aspects of the curriculum in addition to the place-based connections between the unit and their community. The statistically significant results showed increases in overall watershed literacy, knowledge of human impacts on stormwater, engineering principles, and environmental attitudes. These findings will be used to improve the current curriculum, and have broader implications concerning the benefits of using a formalized middle-school 21st century standards-based curriculum to teach watershed literacy and promote pro-environmental attitudes by using a combination of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math in a local, place-based context.