Place-Based Curriculum

Place-based curriculum can be viewed as a holistic approach to education, conservation, and community development that uses the local community as an integrating context for learning. Place-based curriculum seeks to foster a partnership between schools and communities. Historically, it has focused on environmental, social, and economic change, using a project-focused approach tailored by local people to local realities. It has been referred to as community-oriented schooling, ecological education, and bioregional education. The current notion is based on the concept that people should know and understand the historical, sociological, ecological, and political traditions of the places they inhabit. In the current atmosphere of schooling, place-based education is seen as a primarily rural concept. Ironically, the most successful and oldest forms of place-based curriculum are urban. This ...