ABSTRACT
Introduction Sense of place in geography education Educational research has shown that students bring prior knowledge to learning (Driver, 1989). These cognitive schemas (we call them foundational ideas) are existing frames of reference which are used to make sense of new concepts; they are constructed from past experiences situated in specific socio-cultural settings and they influence how and what is learned (Vygotsky, 1962). For example, a student from an urban environment may view water systems differently from one who lives in a rural area due to differences in their foundational ideas (Shepardson, Wee, Priddy, Schellenberger, & Harbor, 2009). In geographical terms, these different ways of interpreting interactions between human and natural systems are used to describe sense of place. According to Agnew (1987), sense of place has a relationship to humans and “the human capacity to produce and consume meaning” (Agnew, 1987 in Creswell, 2004, p. 7). Creswell (2004) adds that, “when we look at the world as a world of places we see different things. We see attachments and connections between people and place. We see worlds of meaning and experience” (p. 11).
