Event Details

DATE: Tuesday, April 14th, 2026


SPEAKER: Dr. Steve Semken, ASU


TITLE:  Place-Based Education in Geoscience


TIME:    

5:30 - 6:30 PM: Happy hour, dinner and drinks.

6:30 - 7:30 PM: Society business and talk.

7:30 PM: Raffle to raise money for student dinners.


LOCATION:  Sitter Family Hall 710, Fort Lewis College

 

COST:  $25/person


RESERVATION DEADLINE (Please register here on website):

Wednesday April 8th by 5:00pm.


ZOOM LINK: https://fortlewis.zoom.us/j/9744025631 

Meeting ID: 9744025631. Zoom starts at 6:30pm

. 

ABSTRACT: Place-based education is a context-rich, transdisciplinary teaching and learning modality distinguished by its intentional relationship to place, which is any locality that people have imbued with meanings and personal attachments through actual or vicarious experiences. As an observational and historical science, geoscience is extraordinarily dependent on place; and hence, place-based curricula and instructional methods apply to geoscience education. The sense of place (combining meanings and attachments) encapsulates and operationalizes the human connection to place. As sense of place is theoretically sound and measurable in diverse ways, it can serve as a signature, authentic, teachable, and assessable learning outcome for place-based education. This presentation is a survey of theory, research-based practice, and assessment of place-based teaching and learning in geoscience sensu lato (Earth-system, environmental, and geographical sciences), centered on five “design elements” for place-based geoscience teaching derived from meta-analyses of current practice. Ethical approaches to interweaving of culturally framed (e.g., Indigenous) knowledges of place and land, place-based geoscience education in the virtual realm, and future directions for research and practice will also be presented.