There are concerns among educational theorists about the conservation of the environment and the rural life style and teaching students to be active community members. This has led to the publication of research papers on place-based theories, preservice teacher education, and a review of a national placed-based development program. The topic of…

Author and environmental educator Tom Wessels discusses how to infer a landscape's history from plants and other clues found on site. Reading the landscape enables people to develop a stronger connection to place. Understanding historic landscape changes is essential to understanding current environmental issues. He also discusses his teaching…

Despite a growing interest in the relationship between community and classroom, there is no shared understanding of basic issues about roles and responsibilities. Teachers can use the community as a learning laboratory by connecting the content studied to aspects of the local community. Characteristics of successful learning-lab programs, barriers…

Examines the effects of a state standards-based reform--the Maine Learning Results--on curriculum and instruction in four small rural schools, focusing particularly on the impact on locally responsive curricula in the schools. Suggests that state standards and place-based curriculum may not be as incompatible as previously suggested. (Author/SV)

Examines adolescents' study of place from the perspective of urban and rural Montessori programs. Adolescents are invited into a study of the city or town or even a neighborhood surrounding the school as an opportunity to experience their own community and society. Highlights potential activities and areas for research. (KB)

At Howard High School (Miner County, South Dakota), educational reform focuses on student understanding of community history, economics, and government; entrepreneurship; sustainability of agriculture, environment, and community; and democratic values. The school aims to nurture community and give students the option of staying in the community.…

In Big Springs, Nebraska, school-based projects aim to increase students' knowledge of and connection to their community. Projects have included making and selling detailed miniature reproductions of local buildings, documenting local history, helping to renovate a historic hotel, reenacting a pioneer Christmas celebration, and researching and…

This is school climate study of the Center for Civic Education's School Violence Prevention Demonstration Program at Ritter Elementary School in Allentown, Pennsylvania for the academic year 2006-7. Ritter, like most of Allentown's schools, is a majority-minority school. Hispanic, African American, Middle Eastern, and immigrant students outnumber…

In this article Paul Sutton examines the concerns associated with place in films. He points out the problems that this poses for our students--problems mainly, but not only, associated with a common lack of geographical authenticity. But this, he suggests, can be turned to our advantage. For what are films, after all, but exercises in historical…

This document contains the 10 quarterly issues of "Rural Matters: The Rural Challenge News," published from Fall 1997 to Winter 2000 (the final issue). This newsletter focused on projects funded by the Annenberg Rural Challenge, as well as research summaries and opinion pieces on the benefits of small schools, place-based education, and…

Describes the Community-Based Arts Project in central New York State, which offers a course through Cornell University that allows students to explore local history and family traditions through storytelling. The steps of story collecting and sharing are a circular transaction of reflecting, listening, telling, and reflecting with the audience,…

Educators are rediscovering the benefits of using the local natural environment as an integrating context (EIC) for curriculum. Once called "nature study," this form of hands-on environmental education draws on the connectedness inherent in natural systems to forge meaningful links in student learning. Sidebars describe EIC projects at…

Valley Quest is an intertown treasure hunt in which schoolchildren or community groups create maps of their towns' special places to exchange with people in nearby communities. Aiming to strengthen connections to community, it is also a year-long curriculum integrating local history, mapping skills, interviews with community elders, poetry…

Nonlinear imagination-based thinking draws on intuition to allow insight into the unseen realms that govern everyday life. Largely abandoned by Western education in favor of materialist rationalism, this faculty is being promoted by a sustainability center in Montpelier (Vermont) that demonstrates methods of harmonizing thinking, learning, and…

Recollections of a small childhood neighborhood suggest that the theory and research on integrating curriculum and community can be implemented by sharing curriculum mandates or standards with students. Once they know what they need to learn, students can draw on shared experience to identify places and people in the community where they might…