Place Learning is an approach to education that asks students to learn with and through the places they inhabit. Instead of treating learning as something that happens only inside a classroom, Place Learning connects academic standards to local history, culture, environment, community, and lived experience.
In my own teaching, I’ve used Place Learning in several ways:
River conservation: Students learn science and literacy through the Broad River and explore questions about water, conservation, and our relationship to the natural world.
Community music: My immigrant students create electronic music inspired by Georgia history and social studies standards, transforming academic content into something personal, creative, and culturally meaningful.
Learners as assets: My Fulbright work has explored using Place Learning to teach English through science and social studies, connecting language learning with local environmental issues and students’ own communities.
Teaching through place: In my work with ESOL students, Georgia history and geography become opportunities to explore questions of belonging, migration, identity, and community.
At its heart, Place Learning is about making education relevant by starting with the question: “Where are we, and what can this place teach us?”
I believe that when students see their own communities as worthy of study, their experiences as worthy of knowledge, and themselves as contributors to their communities, learning becomes more meaningful, and more powerful.