Place-based education focuses on using the local environment and community as a starting point for learning. It emphasizes making connections between students, their community, and the curriculum. Place-based education originated in rural US contexts but has since expanded. Key aspects include relating curriculum to students' lived experiences, promoting connections to their community, and building environmental stewardship and citizenship. Approaches include hands-on, project-based, and problem-based learning focused on the local area. A case study examined place-based learning across three Indigenous early childhood centers in different areas, finding local communities and Indigenous histories were central to the curriculum in culturally distinct but overlapping ways.

1. Place-Based Curriculum Approaches Dr Affrica Taylor Diverse Curriculum Approaches PG May 2010

2. Children’s lives are shaped by the places they inhabit

5. Place has pedagogical significance (Greunewald 2003)

6. Children form attachments to ‘special places’ (Sobel 1993) Children’s ‘sense of place’ can facilitate stewardship (Wilson 1997)

7. Place-based education Origins in rural US contexts Theobald (1997) Teaching the Commons: Place, Pride, and the Renewal of Community Place-base education movement http://www.promiseofplace.org/ Linked to environmental education nature-based learning ‘ new localism’ civics and citizenship education Australian postcolonial place pedagogies (Sommerville 2003)

8. Features of Place-Based Pedagogy Pays attention to social, cultural, built and natural environments Links curriculum to children’s lived experiences Connects children in meaningful ways to their local communities –crosses school/community boundaries Builds affiliations to promote social and environmental stewardship and active citizenship Can be used to promote Reconciliation

9. Features of place-based learning cont. No generic curriculum - adapted to unique characteristics of particular places and children’s immediate concerns Learning in the local through expeditionary learning, problem-based learning, contextual learning, project-based learning, hands on learning, eco-literacy (Orr 2004), critical place-based social literacy, reinhabitation (Gruenewald 2003). Parochialism avoided by studying relationship between places (eg mapping a food chain; comparing local Indigenous cultures and knowledges)

10. Three Sisters Project Place-based Indigenous education project Linking early childhood centres in 3 very different places Wiradjuri Early Childood Centre and Preschool, University of Canberra ACT Redfern SDN Children’s Centre, Redfern NSW Atitjere Creche, Harts Range via Alice Springs NT

11. Three Sisters project cont. Explored how Indigenous education is place-specific Some project questions …. What kinds of relationships do the children in these centres have with their local environments and communities? How might place affect the way we incorporate Indigenous education into our curriculum?

12. Atitjere Creche

13. Place-based learning at Atitjere

14. Place based learning in Redfern

15. Wiradjuri Centre

16. What we found … Great pedagogical significance in focusing on ‘where we are’ Indigenous education looks radically different in different contexts, but there are still common features: Local Indigenous communities are primary and central curriculum resource. Start there. To recognise and include local Indigenous history and cultural heritage is to practise reinhabitation (Gruenewald 2003) and Reconciliation. All Australian places have Indigenous histories. People are curious about the differences and learn from sharing local knowledges and histories. Move from local to ‘bigger picture’ Indigenous and non-indigenous early childhood educators and children have so much to learn from each other.

17. Some references Greunewald, D. (2003). The Best of Both Worlds: A Critical Pedagogy of Place. Educational Researcher, 32(4), 3-­‐11. Orr, D. (2004) Earth in Mind: On Education, Environment and the Human Prospect, Washington, London: Island Press Sobel, D. (1993). Children's Special Places: Exploring the role of forts, dens, and bush houses in middle childhood: Zephyr Press. Sobel, D. (2005) Place-based Education: Connecting Classrooms and Communities, Great Barrington, MA: Orion Society. Sommerville, M. (2009) Becoming frog: A primary school place pedagogy. Retrieved from: www.aare.edu.au/07pap/som07443.pdf Theobald (1997) Teaching the Commons: Place, Pride, and the Renewal of Community Wilson, R. (1997). A Sense of Place. Early Childhood Education Journal, 24(3), 191‐194.