This essay argues the importance of interdisciplinary, contemplative, place-based pedagogy. The Ecology and Colour in 1m[superscript 2] study has students from the sciences and the arts observe a small quadrat in their local community over several weeks, engaging in both scientific and creative expression. The connection to Aldo Leopold's teaching…

Children who live in under-resourced communities and attend under-resourced schools deserve access to high-quality teachers and educational opportunities to support their success and well-being. This study emerged from a professional development (PD) for urban teachers working in such schools, to expand educational opportunities for elementary…

The research-based, Thailand-based learning progression for haze pollution developed by Ladachart, Poothawee and Ladachart opens a new front in the long-running debate over the compatibility of place-based education (PBE) with educational standards. This debate encompasses disagreement over whether PBE and standards are philosophically compatible…

Haze pollution has been an annual environmental problem in the northern region of Thailand. The main causes include agricultural burning and wildfires that are enhanced by the high atmospheric pressure in a geographical plain encircled by mountains. Attempts have been made to address this problem, and place-based education is seen as crucial in…

Education by and for Indigenous peoples needs to focus on and honor the life-affirming notions of land- and place-based connections, our individual and collective responsibilities, reciprocity, and relationships. In todays' school settings, redefining what "success" looks like as well as supporting Indigenous identities are critical to…

Luecha Ladachart, Manus Poothawee, and Ladapa Ladachart take a unique approach in their study entitled, "Toward a hypothetical place-based learning progression for haze pollution in the northern region of Thailand," whereby they frame acquiring disciplinary knowledge within a place-based learning progression in response to regional…

This paper explores the ways learners respond to and express themselves while interacting with cultural artifacts or cultural realia, "beads and beadwork," used to mediate the teaching and learning of life science concepts in a science classroom. South African policies, enacted in the National Curriculum Statement (NCS) and the…

While some Indigenous individuals have achieved "success" in STEM careers, persistent questions from many Indigenous scholars and communities about epistemic dominance at universities remain. Going beyond student achievement, this essay regards the centering of local Indigenous place based knowledge as a paradigm shifting move for…

This study investigates the concept of "connectedness to nature" among students from an indigenous Bedouin community, whose relationship with nature is influenced by a variety of cultural, social and environmental factors, not least of which is the fact that the environment in which they live is highly contaminated. We asked 294 fifth-…

Heather Zimmerman and Jennifer Weible's ("Cult Stud Sci Educ," 2016) use of place-based pedagogy in high school science education honors their participants' lived experiences and the rural communities from which they come. They raise an unresolved tension in their findings: Why did the youth in their study, who clearly learned a lot…

This study explores some of the ways in which the dominant science education system in the United States suppresses Indigenous knowledge systems and privileges Western knowledge. Using anti-oppressive inquiry through critical self-reflection, this study is situated in experiences I have encountered as a non-Indigenous doctoral student, curriculum…

This forum response extends the argument made by Avery and Hains that oral traditions can be useful for including the cultures and contexts of rural areas within science instruction. To buttress the oral expressions presented in Avery and Hains, I compare oral expressions of a second rural area, 600 miles to the South, in Eastern North Carolina. I…

The overarching goal of this paper is to bring a diverse educational context--rural sayings and oral traditions situated in ecological habitats--to light and emphasize that they need to be taken into consideration regarding twenty-first century science education. The rural sayings or tenets presented here are also considered alternative ways of…

What part can science education play in the dismantling of obstacles to social justice in rural places? In this Forum contribution, I use "Learning in and about Rural Places: Connections and Tensions Between Students' Everyday Experiences and Environmental Quality Issues in their Community" (Zimmerman and Weible 2016) to explicitly…

With a perceptive eye cast on geoscience pedagogy for students labeled as disabled, Martinez-Álvarez makes important contributions to the existing conversation on placed-based learning. It is in our local backyards, from the corner basketball court, to the mud bank of a city lake, to the adjacent field where rocky outcrops spill down to a…