ABSTRACT
Students spend up to 20,000 hours in classrooms, by the time they graduate from university, leaving a significant impact on student’s experiences and perceptions of the learning environments they encounter. Research and evaluation in science education focus heavily on conceptual change, which cannot give a complete picture of the educational process. One such area which needs more focus is the student’s understanding of an interaction with the place when engaging in place-based learning. Place-based pedagogies were developed in a reaction to concerns that, due to globalization, students were becoming disconnected from the local communities, cultures and the ecological environments surrounding them in the places that they lived. The goal of place-based learning is to actively engage students in interacting with their local communities through hands-on, real-world problem-solving, which leads to greater appreciation of the natural environment within which they live and a greater connectedness to local community. In this workshop, we will briefly review the research into conceptualizing, assessing and investigating the determinants and effects of the learning environments of science classrooms. Following which participants will be familiarised with the structure and practical applicability of the place-based learning environment instruments.
