Place-based education gains buy-in by helping teachers meet existing mandates, not adding curriculum.

Evidence

When teachers complain “Not one more thing to cover!” we try to clarify that the environmental educator is an inhouse staff-support person. In Gilford, Assistant Principal Sandy McGonagle recently reported: We’ve just started to tmplement FOSS, our new science curriculum, and the teachers were feeling hemmed in and like they had to follow it word for word. Alan (the environmental educator) has helped them see how they can do many of the activities using local resources and they feel freed up because they’ve got someone to work with. — David Sobel, Place-Based Education, 27

Categorization

• XREF: Aligns with the observation-as-method thread: environmental educator reframes local resources as the medium for required content. — connects to: Place-based educators succeed by augmenting existing curricula rather than adding new content. — David Sobel, Place-Based Education: Connecting…, 27

Related

• Place-based educators succeed by augmenting existing curricula rather than adding new content. (similarity 0.91)
• Environmental educators succeed by supporting existing curricula rather than adding new content (similarity 0.91)
• An environmental educator functions as an in-school resource linking teachers to outdoors curricula. (similarity 0.83)
• Environmental content must be balanced with other subjects to be palatable in place-based education. (similarity 0.80)