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17 Invoking the Ontological Realm of Place: A Dialogic Response 227
Enacting Place-Based Education
We agree that invoking the ontological realm in PBE would allow for richer science
teaching and learning experiences that are contextualized and relevant to the lives of
students and teachers. We also recognize that although projects like WormWatch and
standards-based education are beneficial in that they offer salient guidelines for
enacting content-rich and process-oriented science education, they fail to incorporate
what students know about and how they understand the place where the curriculum
is enacted. To summarize our discussion, we present the following key points that
we believe are important in conceptualizing truly place-relevant/place-conscious
science education experiences:
• We must be wary of “globalizing” approaches that are meant to be local and
contextualized.
• PBE as a methodology is as equally important as PBE as pedagogy. If balanced
appropriately, it might offer science educators the necessary framework to apply
PBE in their classrooms.
• Teacher education and professional development for PBE should integrate
activities that allow educators to make sense of their own relationships with and
in a place and experience the tools to bring this place-consciousness into their
teaching.
• Place-based science education should work to make student’s relationships with
place more explicit, focusing on the kinds of relationships students develop with
and in a place, thus acknowledging the ontological realm of place.
• With consideration of the ontological realm, PBE can foster “foundational
capacity for care” in students which becomes essential grounds for ecojustice
and education for ecojustice.
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