'Place-Based Education' To Be Topic Of April 3 CU-Boulder Lecture

March 22, 2008

A teaching technique called "place-based education" that uses the local community and environment as a starting point to teach an array of disciplines will be the topic of a University of Colorado at Boulder lecture on Thursday, April 3.

Statistical evidence shows that place-based education has transformed entire school cultures and helped students and teachers become more excited about learning by getting them engaged in their local communities.

Michael Duffin, co-founder of PEER Associates of Richmond, Vt., will speak on "Using the Local Community as Classroom and Curriculum" at 6:30 p.m. in the Eaton Humanities Building, room 1B50. The talk is free and open to the public.

Duffin will present stories and research-based evidence about lessons learned from his years in the field as an evaluator of place-based education programs. He'll also address how they can be used to teach language arts, math, social studies, science and other subjects.

About 20 CU-Boulder students are using place-based education concepts this semester in an after-school design class they organized at Casey Middle School to teach basic principles of ecological design.

Duffin's talk is co-sponsored by CU-Boulder's College of Architecture and Planning, the Children, Youth and Environments Center for Research and Design, the Environmental Center, Environmental Studies Program and the CU-Boulder Outreach Committee. Collaborators include Casey Middle School of the Boulder Valley School District, the Colorado Alliance for Environmental Education and the CU-Boulder School of Education.

For more information call 303-492-5228.

Contact

Louise Chawla, 303-492-5228
Willem van Vliet, 303-492-5015
Peter Caughey, (303) 492-4007

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