Place-based Curriculum Design: Exceeding Standards through Local Investigations

Place-based Curriculum Design provides pre-service and practicing teachers both the rationale and tools to create and integrate meaningful, place-based learning experiences for students. Practical, classroom-based curricular examples illustrate how teachers can engage the local and still be accountable to the existing demands of federal, state, and district mandates. Coverage includes connecting the curriculum to students’ outside-of-school lives; using local phenomena or issues to enhance students’ understanding of discipline-based questions; engaging in in-depth explorations of local issues and events to create cross-disciplinary learning experiences, and creating units or sustained learning experiences aimed at engendering social and environmental renewal. An on-line resource (www.routledge.com/9781138013469) provides supplementary materials, including curricular templates, tools for reflective practice, and additional materials for instructors and students.

Amy B. Demarest teaches standards-based curriculum design, authentic assessment and watershed education in northern Vermont. A central theme of her work, first as a middle-grades classroom teacher and now at the university level, is to find ways to design curriculum that engages students in the stories, questions, and issues found in the places they live (ourcurriculummatters.com).