A New Kind of Placement Testing

A view of Manhattan from Bushwick, Brooklyn, by Rebecca Thom.

I'm currently reading an amazing book that my best friend, an environmental educator, bestowed on me years ago -
'Deep Ecology; Living as if Nature Mattered.' It provides great breadth to notions of ecology through exploration of 'the philosophical, psychological, and social roots of today's environmental movement.'

I like this self-scoring test on basic environmental perceptions of place. Though, it may be more complicated for the average urban inhabitant, it is nevertheless a very good idea for all of us to ask ourselves...

Where you at?

1. Trace the water you drink from precipitation to tap.
2. How many days until the moon is full (plus or minus a couple of days)?
3. Describe the soil around your home.
4. What were the primary subsistence techniques of the culture(s) that lived in your area before you?
5. Name five edible plants in your bioregion and their season(s) of availability.
6. From what direction do winter storms generally come in your region?
7. Where does your garbage go?
8. How long is the growing season where you live?
9. On what day of the year are the shadows shortest wear you live?
10. Name five trees in your area. Any of them Native? If you can't name them, describe them.
11. Name five resident and any migratory birds in your area.
12. What is the land use history by humans in your bioregion in the past century?
13. What primary geological event/process influenced the land form where you live?
14. What species have become extinct in your area?
15. What are major plant associations in your region?
16. From where you are reading this, point north.
17. What spring wildflower is consistently among the first to bloom where you live?
18. What kind of rocks and minerals are found in your bioregion?
19. Where the stars out last night?
20. Name some beings (nonhuman) which share your place.
21. Do you celebrate the turning of the summer and winter solstice? If so, how do you celebrate?
22. how many people live next door to you? What are there names?
23. How much gasoline do you use a week, on the average?
24. What energy costs you the most money? What kind of energy is it?
25. What developed and potential energy resources are in your area?
26. What plans are there for massive development of energy or mineral resources in your bioregion?
27. What is the largest wilderness area in your bioregion?

(The test originally appeared in CoEvolution, no. 23, winter 1981 - and was adapted for 'Deep Ecology, 1985)

We live in Brooklyn

Exploring Place-Based Education in Schools.

I met a vivacious Science teacher this weekend. She is a biological anthropologist, and thus roots her curriculum in the all-pervasive notions of ecology. Tisa is an inspired and passionate science educator at the Green School in Long Island City. You can read more about her impassioned teaching style at her blog. She described to me how she uses recycled, locally made salsa jars from the Brooklyn Salsa Company as pen holders in the classroom. These recycled wares actually kick off further conversation with her students about such movements as local food, organic, and direct trade - which can also all be integrated into a science lesson. What better way to start talking about place than with food? Understanding the local, which is real to the students - is a prime way to go on into discussing the global.

Ecology comes from the Greek words : οἶκος, meaning "house" or "living relations"
and -λογία, the study of.
It is the scientific study of the relation of living organisms to each other and their surroundings.

Understanding ecology is at the core of understanding life. So what a better place to start than with place-based learning? Most school text books do not employ the study of place, or go on to paint a picture of the land when teaching history. But, the land where the war was fought has everything to do with what happened there. Ecology teaches us that nothing can be so neatly compartmentalized, that locale has everything to do with everything. We look to place as a relic of the past and an indicator of the future. What does the area look like? What is the health of the soil? How old are the trees? What kind of trees are they?

Times square used to be a beaver pond. What was the course of events that transformed it into one of the busiest, electricity-powered places of the 21st century?

National Geographic compares Manhattan in 1609, before Henry Hudson with Today.

“The goal of the Mannahatta Project has never been to return Manhattan to its primeval state. The goal of the project is discover something new about a place we all know so well, whether we live in New York or see it on television, and, through that discovery, to alter our way of life. New York does not lack for dystopian visions of the future…. But what is the vision of the future that works? Might it lie in Mannahatta, the green heart of New York, and with a new start to history, a few hours before Hudson arrived that sunny afternoon four hundred years ago?”

You don't need to venture far to offer students a picture of place. Even in some areas of Brooklyn, where there are few trees - any shrub or tree hosts an abundance of life. If students have the opportunity to work with the soil in their neighborhoods they may access a story layered beneath what, at the onset, looked just like 'dirt.' Students will feel a greater sense of ownership to their learning if it involves their own turf - a story that they can access with their senses. Everything, however far-fetched or global in nature, can be traced back to basic ecological insight. Even global fashion trends and business transactions are affected by place. All you have to do is look! And you probably won't find it in [text] books, unless it is literature, poetry or art written by people about places. And those are some of the best ways of uncovering history, through the wide-ranging voices of the people themselves. Not just white men, about white men, which tends to be our text-book tendency.

Dewey sees the need to integrate geography, history and nature study, for human events unravel in particular times and places. He writes:

"When the history of work, when the conditions of using the soil, forest, mine, of domesticating and cultivating grains and animals, of manufacture and distribution, are left out of account, history tends to become merely literary - a systematized romance of mythical humanity living upon itself instead of upon the earth."

You don't have to go far to break down notions of 'mythical humanity,' just look up from the American History Text, shift the gaze toward one another and outside.