When you were a kid and took a school field trip, do you remember the most exciting part of the day?

For some it was packing a lunch of items that your normal, daily brown bag wouldn’t include…Cheetos, a Hostess Apple Pie, a soda wrapped in aluminum foil (as if that ‘really’ kept it cold until lunchtime).

For others, it was getting out of normal school work and riding the bus while sitting by your best friend and hoping your assigned chaperon was some popular kid’s mom or dad. And for many, it was simply not having to sit inside a stuffy classroom and go through endless worksheets and assignments. Being off of school grounds was freedom!

Ask almost anyone about something they remember from their early school years and pretty much anyone can tell you about a field trip they took. Where they went, what was so special about it, what they learned. They might not remember everything, but something about that specific experience is ingrained inside their memory. They might not have known it then, but what they participated in was Place-Based Learning (PBL).

Place-based learning offers students an opportunity to experience the community around where they live and attend school, all while learning information they need to be successful in their educational goals. Place-based learning is not a different teaching methodology. It is simply incorporating a child’s immediate surroundings into various subjects and aspects of educational instruction.

Sure, you can teach an elementary school child about ecosystems and “the requirements for all living things to maintain their existence” within “design systems that encourage growing of particular plants” (MI Framework, Science Content, Ecosystems III.5; #2 )…OR you could take them to a pumpkin patch or blueberry farm and show them how pumpkins and blueberries grow in a field and how they are harvested after continued care (water, fertilizer, weeding, etc.) by a farmer. Sounds a bit more interesting than reading a book about Frank the Farmer or doing a worksheet where you circle the items needed to make a pumpkin grow.

Don’t get me wrong…reading and handouts can help strengthen that which is taught in any curriculum….but exposing children TO the actual environment where these items grow….well, that’s just a different type of learning. The old Chinese proverb states, “Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand.” Place-based learning helps to get children INVOLVED with their learning.

What starts out as a simple science lesson could be turned into a math lesson on weighing pumpkins!