Teaching Now: Place-Based Learning
With place-based learning, students use inquiry to study the built and natural environments that surround them while they also explore local culture, history, or people. As they build connections with a place, students understand how places are connected to each other and how they can connect to them as learners.
Using primary sources to make connections to a historic place allows students to investigate, analyze, and synthesize information to critically examine broad and diverse themes in history. Connecting places to a topic, particularly when the places are local, can help students develop an understanding of the diverse narratives of the past that make up the history they study today.
Using primary sources that connect to a place requires educators to make purposeful pedagogical decisions that support learning goals, objectives, and assessment outcomes. By combining appropriate instructional approaches for using primary sources and place-based learning, educators can spark students’ interest while guiding them through analysis and inquiry towards higher levels
of critical thinking.
Connecting Primary Sources with Historic Places Professional Development Micro-Credential
Place-based Learning resources Rural Experience in America
Linking Chatbots to Collections for Place-based Storytelling The Signal
Using Place-Based Learning to Spark Inquiry Edutopia
Incorporating Place-Based Learning in an Archives Experience Brooklyn Historical Society
Investigating the Building Blocks of Our Community’s Past, Present and Future lesson plan
ASH Stories from the Heart Academy of the Sacred Heart, New Orleans, Louisiana.