Sense of Place: Awareness of Your Natural Environment

by Cheyenne Pronga, Fieldston Lower School

Overview

Rationale: Beginning each year with a new group of students often brings many questions to mind. What background are these students coming from? What level of understanding or appreciation do they have for the natural environment? What kind of connection do they see between themselves and their surroundings? These are just a few of the questions we face each year. Answering these questions before you begin to teach environmental or earth science topics helps with developing a deeper understanding for what you will face with each new group of students. Understanding the perspectives and attitudes your students have helps to determine what kind of approach will be needed to develop and deepen their understanding of how humans are connected to and depend upon the natural environment.

Subjects: Science and Language Arts

Target Populations: 5th grade and up

Objective: To assess students' awareness of their environment and their attitudes toward their natural surroundings.

Goal: To expand students' understanding and comfort with their natural environment through experiences with community ecology.

Activity

1. Introduction: Explain assignment as a journal style entry about their favorite or most important place. This location must be real and the description should be specific and detailed so as to paint a mental picture of this location. (You will definitely want to limit entries to about 3-5 pages)

2. Discussion: Read an example of this type of writing and discuss what types of things should be included in this type of essay. You may want to make a list of questions or topics students could potentially describe in their essay such as geographic location, environmental and geological surroundings, social importance, etc. Students should also explain why their location is important to them.

3. Independent Brainstorming: Students should try to brainstorm a list of places that they could potentially describe.

4. Pair/Share/Whole group discussion: Have students share their locations and some ideas.

5. Extended brainstorming and prewriting: Have students brainstorm about their final selection. Students should try and flesh out ideas about the different important aspects of their favorite place.

6. Continue with standard writing process: Students should be required to first write a rough draft which should then go through editing, proofreading, and revision processes.

7. Extension: Have students share their favorite places in a culminating author's celebration when all final drafts are complete. Don't forget to have your students submit their work to The Wild Ones for publication. View examples.

Accommodations

Graphic organizers can be used to help students flesh out their ideas about locations. If students are having trouble deciding what to focus on, they can compare locations by comparing each organizer.

Resources

U.S. Society & Values, Electronic Journals of the U.S. Information Agency, Volume 1, Number 10, August 1996.

This electronic journal dedicates a whole issue to examining the "sense of place" in contemporary American literature. Articles include excerpts from an abundance of writing that can help better develop one's perspective on "sense of place."

A Sense of Place UK

When you travel to just about any country on earth, people love to tell you stories about the events, characters and places where they live. From fact to fancy, great tales are woven from a rich blend of history, legend, mystery and myth.

This is an excellent example of what the stories of many people add up to. A living guide to UK, a real picture of the places, characters and landmarks that make it so special. And it’s created by the people who know it best, and visited by those who want to know it better.

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