This undergraduate thesis analyzes the narrative and opinion responses of sixteen tropical interviewees to understand environmental realities and argue for the necessity of developing a deep connection to one's place in order to attain true sustainability. Trending themes that influenced this conclusion were: participant reproduction of stereotypes commonly attributed to tropical regions; the emergence of religious doctrine in descriptions of human's role in nature and spiritual depictions of interactions with the unbuilt environment; and explanations of extra-classroom environmental education. I argue that the best way to live sustainably on this planet is to integrate place-based environmental education that fosters both personal comfort with the natural world and a means to understand the global implications of individual actions.