Page 224 - Cultural Studies of Science Education

198 D. Karrow and X. Fazio

share the location” (p. 107). Within this definition of place appear the natural and
cultural realms; however, little, if any, consideration is given to the ontological
realm, barring perhaps the psychological state of people. What’s more, we are
concerned about this concept of place (the lifeworld, to borrow the language of
Husserl) and its foundation, something we examine using the philosophy of Martin
Heidegger in the following section. Regardless, the association of place with being
within PBE discourse is cursory, despite anticipations by Sack (1997) who alludes
to the interrelationship between land, society, and individual in the following way:
Indeed, the very fact that place combines the unstructured physical space in conjunction
with social rules and meaning enables place to draw together the three realms, and makes
place constitutive of ourselves as agents. (p. 33)
Again, glimpses of such engagement are partly visible in the NatureWatch citizen
science program. Our case studies demonstrate that when students are given license
to consider nontechnical ways of being with worms, for example, cultivating descrip-
tions of these beings in their environment, vocalizing wonder, awe, or amazement,
they surely hold the capacity to discover the meaning of being and in doing so express
primordial capacities of care. In the next section, we illustrate in further detail what
we have come to appreciate – that place must also be configured according to the
ontological realm. We emphasize, place should not be understood strictly as referring
to that in which something is located – it is not a simple position or location. Rather,
place-as-being is the open region within which entities come to appearance. Malpas
(2006) clarifies between the two notions of place in the following way:
Rather than the sense of place that is invoked when I give someone my address, or explain
where to find a particular book, this latter sense of place is more like that which is at issue in
the experience of place as such – whether that be the experience of finding oneself within a
particularly striking landscape, of being gathered into the familiarity of friendly surroundings,
or of trying to navigate through an unknown countryside or town. (p. 49)
The first sense of place is derivative of the experience (more ontic = real and fac-
tual), whereas the second sense of place is more original, embedded still within the
sense-making experience (more ontological = an experience of being).
In summary, initially there has been a tendency to associate place with nature,
that is, place-as-land or place-as-community. This has slowly given way to complex
associations of place with culture, imbued with complex social, political, economic,
and historical forces, influencing the manner place has been conceived, that is,
place-as-difference. And finally, as we suggest, place envelops meaning through the
ontological realm, that is, place-as-being. In doing so, place is conceptualized
through the relationship humans experience within their world.

Place-Based Education

Conceptions of place have had a profound impact on PBE theory and practice. At
the outset we provide a cursory definition of PBE as a developing field of practice.