ABSTRACT

According to Richard Louv, students aren't alone in losing their connection to their place. As he points out in his book, Last Child in the Woods, most young people today grow up more connected to the virtual world than the natural world. In his introduction to LifePlace, Robert Thayer suggests that it is not just young people and not just nature; instead, this loss of connection to one's place has become a defining trait of our culture: "Just past the turn of the millennium, we have all become, in certain fundamental ways, homeless". Mitchell Thomashow's fine book Bringing the Biosphere Home addresses just how challenging it is to make abstract environmental concepts tangible to students and to everyday citizens as well. By using reflective practices in the classroom, in the field, and in the community, teachers hope their students will develop and deepen their connections to their home places.