What's in your tin? Valuing perspective of place

Marianne Braca
Teacher, Huron-Perth Catholic District School Board
In this presentation, we will explore how to engage students in meaningful activities for exploring and valuing "place" while considering personal and differing perspectives. I will begin by sharing a couple of examples of how I focus on a "sense of place" in my classes. The first activity is the Photography of Place assignment, as taught through the National Geographic online course for educators, Storytelling for Impact: Photography. The second activity is the Concentrates of Place assignment that I've written about here: blog.education... Credit for the original idea goes to author and artist Tanya Shadrick: tanyashadrick..... To make the presentation more concrete, I may ask participants to gather and bring to the presentation five small items from a place they value. There are so many learning opportunities that can stem from gathering the "essence" of a place in a tin. I intend to lead a discussion of different ways to use the Concentrates of Place project in all grades and across various disciplines. We will also discuss some of the concrete implications of an assignment like this. Next, I intend to highlight three main things connected to the study of geography: place, perspective, and student connection. Sense of place is an incredibly important concept as a theme of geographic study. We are shaped by place; our intimate connection to a place is unlike the connection that others have to that same place. These projects allowed me to make content relevant in my students' lives through bringing alive the concept of place. I wanted them to slow down and to critically observe the important places in their own lives, and I hope to inspire other educators to do the same. In acknowledging the value of personal perspective regarding the places they’ve highlighted in these activities, I hope that my students learn to respect and appreciate the perspective of others. It is important that students understand that every corner of the world has value, and that even though one place might not hold as much value to us, it may hold great value for others, either now or historically. If I have students discussing and exploring their own environments, it is important that they are fully aware of those who have been here before us, particularly the Métis, Inuit, and First Nations communities who lived with this land before we arrived. Through a more tactile connection, students will see themselves more in the curriculum. Through these types of assignments, they are bringing their "home" to school and the curriculum will be seen throughout different aspects of their lives, instead of being a topic read in a book. I also believe that a more concrete connection to place, especially natural areas, will foster better care for the environment. Finally, I will connect the presentation to the theme of the conference: “Global Citizenship: Inspiring the Next Generation of Changemakers”. I hope to inspire other teachers to bring their geography/explorer related passions to their students by demonstrating how they can help students to experience geography in real time and how they can motivate students to see value in their own lives, as well as the lives and perspectives of others.