Geographer Mark Bjelland notes that a space is simply a set of geographic coordinates, whereas a place is a location that has become meaningful through human habitation. He goes on to define places as having three elements: (1) a material setting, (2) a set of social relationships, and (3) lived experiences that impart personal and shared meanings (Bjelland 174). We contend that schools occupy places, not spaces, and a worthwhile question to ask is, How can education happen such that the place in which it occurs is enhanced because the learning happens there?
Another way to think about this is to ask: Are the residents or businesses, farmers, churches or apartment dwellers grateful that they are located near your school? Is the neighborhood or environment within which the school exists utilized in ways that enhance the education of the students? And is the learning that the school promotes done so in a way that benefits the broader community in which the school belongs? These kinds of questions and the approach they encourage has been referred to as Place-Based Education (PBE; Sobel).
Reciprocity of Place-Based Education
When done well, PBE is a reciprocal arrangement. It focuses on the many relationships in which a school is involved—many that are necessarily present simply due to the proximity of the school and the residents, businesses, churches, and so on, who are located in the immediate vicinity of the school. PBE is an approach that recognizes those relationships, wakes them up, and engages and nurtures them to the betterment of both the learning and the community itself.
As an example, consider a history class in which students interview local senior citizens. When done well, this interaction will affirm the value of those being interviewed, and it will add meaning (in ways a textbook never could) to the history lesson learned by the students. Inviting the interviewees with their families to an event where students present the stories they’ve recorded would further enfold these neighbors into the learning process. The relationships forged through such an assignment could lead to further opportunities for learning and for service, all of which advances the well being of the community in which the school resides.
Places are More than Human
While spaces become places because of human habitation, it is important to recognize that not all relationships in a place are social relationships. For humanity to thrive, healthy relationships with the non-human creation are required. This is true not only for our basic physical needs (clean air, clean water, food, etc.) but also for our psychological, emotional, and spiritual well being (see emerging fields of ecopsychology and environmental neuroscience).
Recognizing how creationally embedded we are in our places raises additional possibilities for engaging in PBE. How can students make use of the school grounds and broader neighborhood to understand the natural history and current-day ecology of their place? How can a school’s campus be cared for in ways that invite back elements of local biodiversity that previously occupied the area? How can the school building and grounds together become managed in ways that work toward carbon neutrality or net-zero waste? Can a garden be created to highlight native plants that were used by local indigenous tribes?
This expansive way of understanding the human presence aligns with Reformed teaching that all of creation belongs to God (Ps. 24:1), that God’s deep love and continued providence is extended to all creation (John 3:16), and that God’s people have the privilege of tending to and delighting in God’s creation (Gen. 1:26; 2:15). These principles provide a framework for paying attention to the places within which we dwell and for situating our educational institutions compassionately within those places. The hopeful vision of a full and vibrant creation in which all relationships are brought back to reflect their created integrity offers a compelling vision for Christian educators.
Re-Inhabiting a Place
Some education scholars promoting PBE advocate for teachers and students to think about ways they can re-inhabit their places—that is, to pursue the kind of action that intentionally and often directly works to improve the social, economic, political, and ecological life of places, both now and in the future (see Bowers; Braid and Long; Smith and Williams; Heffner and Beversluis). According to David Gruenewald, this approach does two things: first, it seeks to “identify, recover, and create” opportunities to live well in our environments, and second, it seeks “to identify and change ways of thinking [and being] that injure and exploit” (9).
Learning how to re-inhabit our place requires developing the ability to notice, pay attention to, and care for what is right around us. It asks us to invest ourselves academically, as well as personally. When our places show signs of disruption and brokenness, these wounds should call to us; we should feel troubled because they indicate our places aren’t right. As Christian educators, caring for our place is not something we should leave for others or resign to do after hours or on the weekends. Instead, our teaching and learning can be a means through which God’s love flows. For this to happen, a critical first step is to learn about the specific strengths and needs of the people and the places wherein our schools dwell.
Cultivating Citizens Who Care for Particular Places
As students become involved in PBE, they will find themselves becoming increasingly invested in their local communities. This will happen for teachers as well. Raising up young people who have an awareness of the issues faced by people in their community could motivate them to become more active. PBE cultivates a spirit of mindfulness that, once awakened, will be transferred by students to wherever they may reside. In a way, engaging in PBE can be like inoculating students with an awareness and a sense of agency. They are not mere recipients of what their places do to them; they can be active change-agents themselves. PBE allows educators and students to practice being engaged citizens and allows them to develop the skills needed to carry these lessons forward.
PBE is needed because the effective education of compassionate citizens will best happen by modeling engagement with the social and ecological places people actually inhabit. “Place-based education might be characterized as the pedagogy of community, the reintegration of the individual into her home ground and the restoration of the essential links between a person and her place” (Sobel ii).
Case Study: Plaster Creek Stewards
More than ten years ago, faculty at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan, learned that the watershed in which the university resides drains to Plaster Creek, considered the most contaminated urban waterway in West Michigan. This was unsettling and raised questions for us about our role as a Christian higher education institution. Do we have a particular responsibility to use some of our academic resources to care for this watershed? Could the watershed become a “text” for some of our teaching? Could the creek and its watershed be a laboratory for learning and practicing research skills? Could we study and implement best practices to foster restoration?
For the past decade we have learned a great deal by paying attention to and focusing on the particularities of our place. Watersheds are parcels of land that drain to a common point and every school, business, church, and individual household necessarily exists within a watershed. It follows that the quality of water that flows out of a watershed testifies to the type of activities occurring within that watershed. Research has shown that Plaster Creek itself is subject to unnaturally high volumes of stormwater runoff caused by vast areas of impermeable surface now occupying the watershed. Additionally, the stream carries high sediment loads, contains degraded fish and aquatic insect communities, and supports E. coli bacterial concentrations measured as high as fifty times greater than levels determined safe for even partial human contact. The stream is also the recipient of automotive discharges, excessive nutrients, lawn and agricultural pesticides, industrial wastes, and residential garbage.
Calvin’s attention to the creek began with service-learning projects that included water-chemistry analysis, a botanical inventory, an oral history project, and a variety of geographic information-systems studies. As we became more involved in the watershed, partnerships formed with others who cared about the condition of the creek—local organizations, residents, schools, and churches. In 2009 we held a workshop that included representatives from many of these groups and collectively decided to start a watershed restoration initiative called Plaster Creek Stewards.
Plaster Creek Stewards has a three-fold focus: education, research, and restoration. Through ongoing education/action events we have mobilized hundreds of residents, students, and families to become involved in caring for the watershed. A new Biology Research Methods course has been introduced and hundreds of students have learned how to do research by using the Plaster Creek watershed as their laboratory. Findings from student research projects conducted in this class have informed our approach to restoration work. We have also utilized student volunteers and interns to help us grow native plants to use in our restoration work. To learn more, visit https://calvin.edu/plaster-creek-stewards.
What has emerged through Plaster Creek Stewards is an engaged institution reaching out and connecting to various places and people in the watershed. We have learned so much from these connections, and through them our school has been able to contribute to the well being of our particular place. Education is not happening only in the classroom, and neither is it simply a teacher dispensing information. The learning that occurs flows back and forth between our school and the community.[1] It happens in classes, but it also happens through volunteer events, summer research, informal dialogues, and church adult-education sessions. This initiative has provided Calvin with the opportunity to begin re-inhabiting the watershed in a more engaged, informed, and life-affirming way.
Conclusion
The overall goal of PBE is to connect classrooms and communities in the shared task of caring for that which is close at hand. In the process we can create occasions to bring the good news of the gospel to the places we inhabit and to the people who share those places with us (Mark 16:15). Through this work we hope to begin the long process of reconciliation between people and their place and in so doing help to regain some of the former glory of a beloved portion of God’s creation.
Works Cited
Bjelland, Mark. “From Stewardship to Place-Making and Place-Keeping.” Beyond Stewardship: New Approaches to Creation Care, edited by David P. Warners and Matthew Kuperus Heun, Calvin Press, 2019, chapter 13.
Bowers, C. A. Educating for Eco-Justice and Community. University of Georgia Press, 2001.
Braid, B., and A. Long, Place as Text: Approaches to Active Learning.National Collegiate Honors Council, 2000.
Gruenewald, D. A. “The Best of Both Worlds: A Critical Pedagogy of Place.” Educational Researcher vol. 32, no. 4, 2003, pp. 3–12.
Heffner, G. G., and C. Beversluis, “Strengthening Liberal Arts Education by Embracing Place and Particularity.” Teagle Foundation White Paper, 2007.
Smith,G., and D. Williams, Ecological Education in Action: On Weaving Education, Culture, and the Environment, edited by Gregory A. Smith and Dilafruz R. Williams, State University of New York Press, 1999.
Sobel, David. Place-Based Education: Connecting Classrooms and Communities. The Orion Society, 2005.
David Warners is a professor of biology at Calvin University. He is a co-editor of the recently published Beyond Stewardship: New Approaches to Creation Care. Together with Gail Heffner, he co-directs Plaster Creek Stewards, a community-based watershed restoration initiative. David has also been working with Garrett Crow on a field-based retrospective assessment of Emma Cole’s 1901, Grand Rapids Flora.
Gail Gunst Heffner is a member of the faculty at Calvin University, currently serving as the Director of Community Engagement in the Office of the Provost. Her PhD is in Urban Studies and Resource Development from Michigan State University. Her most recent publication is a chapter on environmental racism for a new book, Beyond Stewardship: New Approaches to Creation Care. Gail and Dave are co-founders and co-directors of Plaster Creek Stewards, a community-based watershed restoration initiative in West Michigan. Plaster Creek Stewards focus on education, research, and on-the-ground restoration of the health and beauty of Plaster Creek, the most contaminated urban waterway in West Michigan. Plaster Creek Stewards celebrated their tenth anniversary in 2019.