A Sense of Place

There is a movement happening within schools, both public and private, to encourage children to connect with their immediate environment. This has come as a result because when a school does environmental curriculum they learn about far away places and their problems. Kids effectively connect more to penguins and tigers than they do animals that might live in their own back yard. They also learn more about destruction of the rain forest or desertification on the outskirts of the Sahara than they do about clean groundwater in their community. This leads to some huge disconnects. First of all, once the curriculum about the rain forest is over the kids are going to be more challenged to continue to connect to a place that is thousands of miles away and completely different from what they're used to. Second of all, once they loose that connection why should they care, how does the extinction of the polar bear affect them?

Now instead imagine northern New England. A place where there are oak, maple, aspen, fir and pine, rolling hills, deer, moose, bobcat, lynx, and coyote. Children from this area can learn about the forest in their back yard. Learning about the trees and making maple syrup will build stronger connections to the environment. Their woods are no more or less important than the rain forest. They can also learn about environmental problems such as honey bee die back, which has been proven to be caused by pesticides. The idea is that these things they can touch, smell, taste, see, and hear. It has been proven time and time again that anyone learns better when they use more senses to learn. Also when the curriculum is over, they will continue to see the forest, or even better visit the forest. Learning about the fall and why the leaves change or spring when the leaves come back out isn't an intangible topic, because in the kids minds IT REALLY HAPPENS!

Children up until almost 8th grade have a hard time with abstract concepts and so starting an environmental unit with 10 year olds 'Ok kids imagine a place thousands of miles away in the middle of the ocean...' you've already lost your class. If a kid has never even seen the ocean, this isn't an effective way to connect kids to that place. It works so much better when you start your lesson with 'Ok kids, we're going outside where you're not going to have to imagine anything because we are studying maple trees you can touch them, see them, measure them, and then we're going to make maple syrup!'

Giving children, or adults, a sense of place is very important. It means that they feel as if they belong and are connected to a place, be it in the forest, one spot, or a trail system. They feel as if they are part of the interactions that take place there. I have been working to feel a sense of place in Wisconsin. Going out and being somewhere, looking closely, sitting, listening, and setting down roots in just one place is important. Those who care and are deeply connected to a place are more likely to hold on to their understanding of that place than those who learn about a place they aren't connected to.