What does placed based education look like?

What is placed base education and what does it look like? Well.. Place based education is when the classrooms curriculum connects to the environment around them. Connecting education and the community of your students.

 

The PDF I found on the Internet regarding placed based education gave plenty of examples of teachers getting the students engaged in their communities and giving them a hands on approach to real life scenarios. A few of the things that Sobel spoke of described what place based education looks like. "...Engaging students in the design of a river museum at the end of the river walk. Different grades will be responsible for changing exhibit of the museum." As Sobel stated every grade was responsible for some aspect of creating this museum. It got the children involved in a creative way that connected it to their surroundings. "Knowledge of the nearst things should be acquires first, then that of those farther and father off." (Woodhouse, Thresholds, 2001) Children should have textbooks that relate to where they live. Their education should revolve around their communities and what they can do to help them, not standardized tests. By giving the children real world scenarios it helps engage them to things that are relevant to them.

 

Sobel, David. "Place-based education: Connecting classroom and community." Nature and Listening 4 (2004).

 

I would like to incorporate some aspects of public education in my classroom. I think that there is a ton of potential learning experiences in nature if you let them happen. I love taking my kids outdoors for walks in the town, by the firestation, police station and the town common. We also try and take them out to local fields to expereince the outside other than the playground. I like the idea of the incorporating many subjects into one theme. I do that know with my two and three year olds. We choose one theme a week and base every angle of the classroom off of it. We would include math, literacy, art, history, science, sensory,auditory and gross and fine motor skills into these themes. Since it is spring we are learning about pond animals, farm animals, eggs &bunnies, Boston Sports Week (because all my boys are interested in the teams) and gardening and flowers. These themes will all have different activities based off the different skills and will work on each area of development for my students but in a fun creative way. I like my children to learn through play and believe a hands on envrionment is the most important way to learning in the earlychildhood level.

 

 

 This activity is a cute puzzle made of popsicle sticks that is used for intellectual and fine motor development.

 

 

 

 

 

This picture demonstates place based learning by having the childrens plant flowers and show them the process of gardening rather than read it in a textbook. Place based education goes beyond the textbook. This is an activity I also do with my children (this photograph is from Google not mine) during our gardening and flower week. We usually plant seeds in a cup and leave them in the window sill and observe what happens.