David Sobel's Foundation

David Sobel, Place-Based Education: Connecting Classrooms & Communities (2004, The Orion Society, pp.1-35).

1. Why do we need, as Wendell Barry observed, a fundamental re-imagination of the ethical, economic, political, and spiritual foundations upon which society is built?

A fundamental re-imagination of the ethical, political, and spiritual foundations upon which society is built is required if we are to: move #1. from extraction to sustainability as the underlying metaphor of our relationship with Earth; #2. from fragmentation to systems thinking as a conceptual model; #3.from here-and-now to long-ago and far-away as a developmental guideline for curriculum design; #4. from mandated monocuture to emergent diversity as a school district goal.

2. What is place-based approach to education and what organization coined the phrase?

The Orion Society coined the phrase 'place based education' in the early 1990s as part of its enduring commitment to  'deep local knowledge of place' and the belief that 'solutions to many of our eccological provlems lie in an approach that celebrated, empowers, and nurtures the cultural, artistic, historical, and spiritual resources of each local community and region, and champions their ability to bring those resources to bear on the healing of nature and community.'

3. Why should teachers with EE endorsement understand the significance of David Sobel's work?

David Sobel's work, as well as the work of Wendell Barry, David Orr, John Elder, and others, provides a foundation for a pedagogy of community steeped in love, i.e., love of home, love of land, love of nature, etc.,  out of which has emerged many approaches to education that place the environment as the integrating context for pedagogical and citizenship practices.

4. Who was Comenius and what remains significant about his work for EE teachers?

Comenius was a seventeenth-century education philosopher who believed "knowledge of the nearest things should be acquired first, then that of those farther off" (Woodhouse, cited in Sobel, 2004). This view may seem in stark contrast to that of Marie Montessori, who believed educators should 'give the child the Universe first, and the rest will follow.' Upon closer examination, however, we note that Montessori encouraged a pedagogy that awakened the child's sense of wonder for the Universe within which the child finds her home. Once the spark of wonder is ignited, learning about one's local 'home' and expanding one's knowledge to include farther reaches developmentally appropriate and builds toward an understanding of the whole as home.

5. Compare the perspectives of these two plaints: NIMBY and PIMBY

The first acronym refers to the plaint: Not in my back yard; the second refers to the call: Please in my back yard. When one has established a foundation for sustainable practices in a system that employs sustainable systems criteria, the practice of placing hazardous developments in low-valued communities could be transformed.

6. Describe briefly a few of the contributions of the following: Bill Bigelow; Roger Hart; Lieberman and Hoody; John Dewey; E. O. Wilson; David Orr; 

Bill Bigelow wrote the article, "How My Schooling Taught Me Contempt for the Earth," in 1996, in which he described how the commonly employed educational approach through the twentieth century constructed a pedagogical blindness toward Earth, the local environment and community, and in the experience of one's relationship to Earth.  This critique called attention to a common effect of schooling and to calls for change.

Roger Hart presents an inclusive view of environmental education is his book Children's Participation: The Theory and Practice of Involving Young Citizens in Community Development and Environmental Care (1997. He illustrates with examples from many nations and regions of the Earth how place-based education (PBE) differs from the latest versions of environmental education, which have devolved in many ways into studies of catastrophe and an endangered planet. PBE focuses on the ways 'education and initiatives in resource management together form the heart of the movement to develop sustainable communities.'

Lieberman and Hoody, two of the researchers who produced the State Education and Environment Roundtable (SEER) report, Closing the Achievement Gap, explain that evidence from twelve states where schools were using the 'Environments as an integrating Context' (EIC) supports the claim that school communities that organize their own place-based education, led by teachers, administrators, and students' own interests, using developmentally appropriate practices, evidence greater achievement, lower absentee rates, greater involvement by students and community, and demonstrate the capacity to mitigate local resource issues with sustainable systems approaches.

John Dewey, an education philosopher and teacher, observed as early as 1890 that the common model of schooling was alienating students from their own lived experiences, dividing the child's world into two incompatible areas: the world of the schoolroom where only 'book knowledge' was valued, and the world of the child's out of school life, which educational practice ignored, and at times, vilified. 

E. O. Wilson is an internationally renowned scientist, philosopher, and advocate of our study of our biosphere. He contributes to EIC in many ways, but specifically by observing and demonstrating that all living creatures experience 'biophilia,' an affinity for the natural world. It is strongest when we are young, but when nurtured, can guide our life choices throughout our lives and can be a foundation for sustainable practice.

David Orr, professor from Oberlin College, has long claimed that 'all education is environmental education.' This is particularly evident in Place-Based Education, with EIC expressing this most clearly.

7. Summarize Darwin's theory of evolution as it applies to finches in the Galapagos Islands.

What is central to understanding Dewey's theory of evolution as it applies to the finches of the Galapagos Islands includes an understanding of how Time and Distance shaped the development of different species of finches in the Galapagos. At some time, finches arrived at the Galapagos Islands. These volcanic archipelago islands lie in the Pacific Ocean at a great distance from Ecuador (about 1,000km). The finches became distributed over the islands which had very different habitats from one another and over another long period of time, the finches of the different islands evolved different speciations adapted to the habitats in which they were able then to survive and thrive. Without these evolutionary adaptations, finches would not have been able to survive and thrive. Distance from the mainland (1,000km) was a key factor, as was distance between different island habitats.

8. Identify the following acronyms: PBE; EIC; RMOLL; SEER; NEETF; MAGIC; KIRIS; FORUM; & PEEC.

PBE: Place-Based Education;

EIC: Environment as an integrating context;

RMOLL: Rachel Marshall Outdoor Learning Laboratory;

SEER: State Education and Environment Roundtable;

NEETF: National Environmental Education and Training Foundation;

MAGIC: Mountain Area Gardens in Community;

KIRIS: Kentucky Instructional Results Information System;

FORUM: a publication of the Funder's Forum on Environment and Education;

PEEC: Place-based Education Evaluation Collaborative.