Outdoor Education Commons^™

“We Can Do This At Our School!” Place-Based Education, Literacy, & Learning, Erica R. Hamilton, Janet Staal, Jessica Vander Ark

Michigan Reading Journal

This article highlights the power of using place-based education (PBE) in a K-8 school to support and extend students' literacy and learning. Through PBE, teachers learn to use their local places such as playgrounds, neighborhoods, parks, streams, forests, and urban centers as contexts to make connections and facilitate learning. Moreover, as seen in the examples provided throughout this article, PBE empowers teachers and students to study and read the world, integrate knowledge across disciplines, write for authentic purposes and audiences, create and share narratives connected to local places, and engage in and share research. As a result, students’ excitement for …