Place-based education is one of the concepts upon which Discovery was founded. In general, it refers to education that is grounded in the communities of the students, including their ecological, economic, and cultural environment.
Place-based education pulls in real-world, local opportunities and issues to make learning relevant to students’ lives and experience. This approach aims to increase student engagement, boost academic outcomes, and guide students to become active participants and stewards of their environment and communities.
At Discovery Charter School, students are in close proximity to the Indiana Dunes National Park and other unique natural areas, to the steel mills, to Indiana’s traditions of agriculture, to Lake Michigan and the streams and rivers that flow into it, to local institutions of art, history, science and government, to world-class museums, and much more. Teachers can draw on any or all of these - and more - to provide meaningful connections for the reading, writing, mathematical, scientific, and critical thinking skills they are cultivating in their students.
To support place-based education, Discovery has put in place Great Lakes educational standards for each grade level adapted from Great Lakes Literacy Principles. In addition, Discovery has cultivated a wide range of partnerships with local environmental groups, museums, nature centers, and other community resources that help to provide students with opportunities to learn and engage.
Place-based education at Discovery takes a variety of forms. During field work at or near the school, students can explore the forest habitat, watch for seasonal changes in nature, explore the pond for aquatic organisms, help care for the butterfly garden, or remove invasive plants from the woods, to name a few of the many possibilities. Learning experiences away from the school campus introduce students to other aspects of their communities and broaden their outlook. Student-led projects encourage students to have a voice in identifying a community issue and coming up with a solution, or in choosing a citizen science project that contributes to scientific knowledge.
Discovery staff wrote and adopted the following as a simple definition of place-based curriculum: “An educational approach which incorporates local and regional partnerships to develop a sense of community and a student’s place in it.” By using our unique place as a resource to engage students, place-based education can help them learn that they can make positive contributions to their school, to their communities, to our environment, and beyond.