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Navigating
Place-Based Learning
Mapping for a Better World
Elizabeth Langran · Janine DeWitt

Navigating Place-Based Learning
Elizabeth Langran · Janine DeWitt
Navigating
Place-Based Learning
Mapping for a Better World
Elizabeth Langran Janine DeWitt
Marymount University Marymount University
Arlington, VA, USA Arlington, VA, USA
ISBN 978-3-030-55672-3 ISBN 978-3-030-55673-0 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55673-0
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To our students… Long may you roam
Foreword: Toward Mapping for a
Better World
Yet, not “forward,” but backward in time, since to understand a place, we

must consider it as a place in time: the logics of time—the chronological
pasts that have constructed it: in other words, the
Geologic
Hydrologic
Geomorphologic
Climatologic
Meteorologic
Ecologic
Paleologic
Archaeologic
Anthropologic
and finally its current Sociologic phenomena, such as settlement patterns,
routes along water: outward to and from it; its drainage patterns, inter-
ruptions, and their impact on habitats and human settlements, high and
low elevations, and relationships to production, economics, and power.
Therefore the maps that represent the preexisting and current conditions
must be consulted in order to construct a “deep map.”
The “deep map” provides the spatiotemporal context that allows
for deeper reflection on the power and potential of change that is of
course, inevitable. While the list of “logics” may seem irrelevant to the
current sociological conditions, the knowing of those preexisting condi-
tions compose the critical knowledge the powerful own and that the
vii
viii FOREWORD: TOWARD MAPPING FOR A BETTER WORLD
dispossessed need, to understand the positioning of current events; and

therefore to provide a basis for better decision-making.
How did humans know where to go? Since we must have water, we
must follow water. Water may lead humans upstream or downstream,
north, south, east, or west; to its source or its eventual destination as
it flows. The tributaries of a river drain mineral, animal, and vegetable
resources to its sediments, depositing new soil, expanding valleys of new
land, and continually doing so until the source waters meet the sea. These
are the lifelines humans must inhabit. Having inhabited them, humans
construct cultural landscapes upon the river and its deposits that give
them life. Understanding the necessary role of water—potable water—
must precede any other interpretation of any place. Who, how, when, and
why was the river bridged, diverted, dammed? Where is it polluted?
Where, then, is the source water of each city? How, when and by whom
was it settled? How did it become a center of activity for the area? For
there are the geology, the layers of occupation, the ultimate resources of
that place. Understanding the underlying geology and infrastructure is
critical to understanding the current conditions of a place. The sources
that become constructed as “resources” must be presented. Where are
the water lines, the roads, the schools, the churches, the health services?
How did these shape the settlement and subsequent history of those who
came to this place, and when, in what order, by which strokes of history
did the place become populated, and what were their relationships? What
do the historic maps of the region reveal about the constraints upon who
lives where?
Pre-Columbian coastal Peruvian city-states were built on the coastal
plain (once much more extensive to the Pacific) as the rivers that
drained the once-glaciers deposited gold, copper, and other minerals
that became wealth. Farm communities up the slopes of the city-states’
Andean elevations, known as Tierras: Caliente, Templada, Fria, Helada, &
Nevada established patterns that endure today. Post-glacial flooding and
mudslides attacked the downstream cities. But the gold? Some artifacts
remain, but the 95-year Incan Empire’s expansion into northern Peru
and Ecuador amassed the gold from the captured city-states, only to be
offered by Atahualpa, the Incan heir, as his ransom to Pizarro and Spain
by 1533. Geologic events both fed and destroyed those cities who, in
response to the floods, had sacrificed hundreds of humans.
In a 1999 middle school project on pre- and Civil Rights Era Raleigh,
NC, historic maps showed students the raw mapping of segregation in
FOREWORD: TOWARD MAPPING FOR A BETTER WORLD ix
the city’s historic Sanford insurance maps. While these students still lived
in the designated southeast part of town, they began to understand what
had come before that, and while by then school choice gave them other
options, the de facto residential patterns persisted.
In the following chapters, the investigations of “place” focus largely in
cities as landscapes of cultural activity. Whose? When and how did these
evolve? How did settlement expand from the central water source by its
inhabitants? Who lives “in the Heights?” Who lives in the dense and low
elevations where flooding occurs and services are absent? In Chapter 3,
the concept of Critical Place-based Inquiry is presented, using Bednarz’
1994 basic geographic inquiry process of:
• Ask Geographic questions

• Acquiring geographic resources (or information)
• Visualizing geodata
• Cognitively develop and process knowledge and produce or process
geodata
• Answer geographic questions
• Present the results of geographic inquiry.
Pushing further from these results, students are asked to develop a critical
lens using Freire’s concept of of “Reading the world”; taking a critical
stance on what is uncovered through this process, for example,
• What are the best features of our community? What could make it
better for all?
What follows is an articulation of a Critical Place-Based Inquiry Model

to stretch beyond the surface toward the social context and dynamics
of the location using “City as Text” and other resources with specific
considerations, suggested devices and strategies as well as recommended
assessments, rubrics, and interpretive strategies such as D.I.V.E.: Describe,
Interpret, Validate, Evaluate. Many other design and strategies and analyt-
ical tools and processes are introduced to support this type of inquiry.
Specific attention and safety precautions are offered under “Inclusive
Mapping: Different Learners Experience Different Challenges,” where
there is an admirable discussion of adapting this type of inquiry for all
students.
x FOREWORD: TOWARD MAPPING FOR A BETTER WORLD
In the not-so-distant last century, the year 2020 was seen as a future
time when all problems would be solved, the earth a healthier planet
than it was then, and when all things would be possible. Instead, we
inherit a confounding and insidious pandemic, the continued and height-
ened awareness of racial injustice and its persistence, and continued polit-
ical impotence for righting the wrongs incurred on the planet. There’s
been plenty of research, enough data to hold down library shelves world-
wide, yet the shining moment predicted as the time we would be better
continues to elude us. There isn’t even a new (impossible?) deadline yet.
In the twentieth century, GIS educators led place-based investigations
in middle and high schools that challenged water quality issues in Flint,
Michigan (only being addressed today), challenged historical race issues
in Raleigh, North Carolina, and Ground Truthed local land areas’ perme-
ability for improved remotely sensed data land classifications for their
USGS partner in Fairfax, Virginia, among other projects. At the time,
the Freireian approach was labeled “Problem-based learning.”
During their work on this volume, authors Langran and DeWitt artic-
ulate the potential of “Critical Place-Based Pedagogy” in the unusual
context of COVID-19 social distancing. In the upheaval of canceled face-
to-face classes, one student found COVID-19 data from Johns Hopkins
and analyzed it with social vulnerability data. Students were learning to
access types of data that were almost immediately picked up by news
outlets in near real time, clearly demonstrating its critical nature.
In this century, the ubiquity of digital image and data-based mapping
options has increased and become more compatible among platforms and
media of all kinds. Cell-phone technologies have proliferated and made
these kinds of studies and learning more productive and sharable. This
volume brings these platforms to the practices of mapping and spatial
literacy from a local-to-critical issue focus incorporating spatial literacy-to-
critical pedagogy, providing articulate discussions and examples of instruc-
tional and educational technology solutions for such critical place-based
inquiry.
In this once future landmark year, the authors responded to unimag-
inable constraints realizing and demonstrating in the doing of Critical
Place-based investigations, the continued need for “mapping for a better
world.”
Cape Cod, USA Marsha Alibrandi

June 2020
Preface
Common Ground: Our Love

for Learning Adventure
When the two of us first met, we quickly discovered several common inter-
ests that were to shape our lunchtime conversations for years to come. We
enjoyed experimenting with the teaching potential of new technologies
and we craved opportunities for getting students outside the four-walled
classroom! Coming from two different disciplines (education and soci-
ology), we found common ground in place-based learning. And although
our formal training was not in the discipline of geography, we were drawn
to geospatial questions out of curiosity and a spirit of adventure. We took
a leap and decided to “play” at teaching—and learn by doing.
Our first joint venture involved applying for a Provost’s grant at our
university—we tested several mobile mapping devices. Although we found
the project intuitive, other faculty at our university questioned the value
of testing a variety of tablets for the purpose of connecting the class-
room with field excursions. Their doubts were not the only challenges we
faced. Like many pilot projects we found that the expense associated with
purchasing enough equipment for an entire class was prohibitive. After
that point we each ventured into different directions—globally networked
learning for Janine and mobile device learning for Elizabeth. In spite of
taking different paths, the classroom activities we designed continued to
pull in place-based inquiry. And we often suggested that our colleagues
xi
xii PREFACE
add a spatial component to their assignments. Without realizing it, we

had discovered the added value of using spatial tools to promote critical
reasoning. We began to consider how spatial analysis could make visible
complex social phenomena. And so—our journey, that started as “just
lunch,” led us to this book.
Arlington, USA Elizabeth Langran

Janine DeWitt
Acknowledgments
Writing a book was as hard as I expected. If it weren’t for the encourage-

ment of my family, I probably would have surrendered long ago. Thanks
to each of you for putting up with this reluctant writer. There are a
number of gifted educators who helped me imagine how to teach outside
a four-walled classroom. Carolyn Oxenford supported our first project
when others couldn’t imagine where we were headed. I learned how to
structure meaningful student excursions by planning global classrooms
with Victor Betancourt, the Director of MU’s Center for Global Educa-
tion. My colleagues, Delario Lindsey and Matt Bakker, sent me home to
write on more than one occasion. You shaped my thinking about critical
pedagogy more than you realize. Seeing the world through the eyes of
my students taught me the value of multiple perspectives. Elizabeth—you
are a great travel companion in every sense of the word, whether we are
en route to Paris or just imagining a new classroom excursion. Through
good times and bad, laughter and tears, you remained steady and certain
that we could harness the potential of place-based learning—you are a
blessing my friend, thank you for inviting me along for the ride.
—Janine DeWitt
xiii
xiv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It is with deep gratitude that I want to acknowledge the many people who
have offered support during this process:
First, I wish to thank my family and Bruce for their support and
patience as I worked on this for several years. I’m sorry I could not finish
this in time to present my father with a copy—I know he would have
been proud. Thanks to Marsha Alibrandi, for roping me into her world
of geospatial technology in the first place. We surmounted so many chal-
lenges in those early days! I’d like to acknowledge Esri’s education team,
especially Tom Baker and Joseph Kerski, as we pushed the boundaries on
the technology until we found a way to tell the stories of place the way we
wanted to. I am grateful for my students, who creatively tried out these
new technologies. We appreciate the patience and support of our editors
at Palgrave Macmillan as we worked to complete this manuscript through
several personal challenges. I keep having new discoveries that I want to
add to this book, but it is time to send it off. Finally, thank you Janine for
going on this adventure with me. I know the strength of this book is due
to your thoughtful approach and willingness to embrace inquiry in your
own life.
—Elizabeth Langran
Contents
1 Place-Based Learning, Geospatial Literacy, and Maps 1

What Is Place-Based Learning? 2
Geospatial Literacy 7
Mapping 10
The Role of Place in Your Classroom 19
Chapter Conclusion: The Case for Place-Based Education 20
References 21
2 How and Why Placed-Based Learning Works 25

Spatial Thinking 26
The Human Brain: Designed to Learn “On the Go” 27
From Life to Classroom, and Classroom to Life 30
Situated Learning as Learning in Place 32
Critical Pedagogies of Place 41
Chapter Conclusion: The Major Tenets of a Critical
Pedagogy of Place Approach 48
References 50
3 The Design of Critical Place-Based Inquiry 55

A Critical Approach to Place-Based Inquiry 57
General Design Considerations 64
Assessment 82
xv
xvi CONTENTS
Chapter Conclusion: Designing for Success in Critical

Place-Based Inquiry 85
References 87
4 Facilitating Student Learning 91

Facilitation Strategies 93
Inclusive Mapping: Different Learners Experience Different
Challenges 110
Chapter Conclusion: Tensions, Challenges, and Avoiding
Detours 113
References 114
5 Place-Based Inquiry in Action 117

Leveraging Technology with Place-Based Learning Tools 117
Place-Based Inquiry: Projects for Inspiration 124
Place-Based Inquiry in Focus 129
Chapter Conclusion: New Possibilities for Place-Based
Inquiry with Emerging Technologies 135
References 139
6 Conclusion: Mapping for a Better World 141

Purposeful, Authentic Learning 142
Community Partnerships Chart the Path for Student
Activism 144
The Ethical Boundaries of Critical Place-Based Inquiry 148
Place-Based Inquiry for ALL Learners: Access, Positionality,
and Equity 151
Chapter Conclusion: Final Thoughts 152
References 153
7 Afterword 155
Critical Place-Based Pedagogy in the Contemporary Context 155
References 160
Index 161
List of Figures
Fig. 1.1 Mobile mapping: gravesite of P.T. Barnum (Photo by

E. Langran) 16
Fig. 2.1 Cone of experience as adapted to place-based activities
(Source Image by Dewitt & Langran, adapted from Dale,
1969) 31
Fig. 3.1 Critical place-based inquiry model (DeWitt & Langran) 59
Fig. 4.1 Early attempt challenges 92
Fig. 4.2 Esri Survey 123 mobile app 103
Fig. 5.1 Student engaged in place-based learning (Photo by
J. DeWitt) 118
xvii
List of Tables
Table 1.1 Suitability for place-based learning 20

Table 3.1 Critical place-based inquiry activities and assumptions 65
Table 3.2 Planning process for place-based inquiry activities 67
Table 3.3 Place-based learning course planning worksheet 68
Table 3.4 Student tasks for field exploration: before, during, and
after 82
Table 3.5 Sample mapping & information literacy rubric (Modified
from Dursi & DeWitt, 2012) 84
Table 3.6 Sample single-point rubric for community exploration 86
xix
CHAPTER 1
Place-Based Learning, Geospatial Literacy,

and Maps
Place is more than where you go, it’s also why you are there
An excited group of students receive directions to meet at a mysterious
destination at a specific time. The students arrive at a cemetery after dark!
Their excursion is an introduction to a class being offered by The Pioneers
Learning Lab (http://www.thelearninglab.nl), an innovative educational
program associated with the University of Amsterdam. “We go literally on
a journey in which we do not know what the end station is,” explains the
instructor, Thiel Besselink (Smit & van Doorn, 2011, 6:20).
Once on location, Besselink instructs the students to spend their time
as they choose: “You are pioneers. So you decide what you do with your
time…What are you going to do with your time? And life is short. It’s
really short. Tick tock tick tock. So what we’re doing is trying to stretch
the boundaries of education, inside and outside of the classroom…inside
and outside of your life” (Besselink, as cited in Smit & van Doorn, 2011,
7:15). Taking flashlights, they explore the cemetery and then return for a
large group reflection on the activity. Many of the students make profound
connections between this introductory experience and the goals of the
Pioneer program which they are about to begin. In this example, the
location of study—the cemetery—becomes part of the learning journey.
Imagine this same activity where the students were shown slides of a
cemetery or simply asked to think about being in a cemetery.
© The Author(s) 2020 1

E. Langran and J. DeWitt, Navigating Place-Based Learning,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55673-0_1
2 E. LANGRAN AND J. DEWITT
Besselink designed this experiential activity to shift the students’ focus

from a teacher-directed to a student-initiated classroom, modeling the
experience of going to an unknown rather than prescribed final destina-
tion. Being on location played an important role in communicating the
purpose of learning. The connections to the learning outcomes of this
activity are made clear to the students through the instructor’s facilitation
of the group discussion.
When we blur the boundaries of a classroom and expand the locations

where learning occurs, as educators, we create opportunities for students
to explore place as an important dimension in and of itself. The end
result is that students and educators are inspired to imagine adventures
that allow for the transfer of learning from an abstract discussion to a
concrete exploration with “real” world connections. In this chapter we
look at what is known about geospatial literacy and explore the different
traditions from which place-based learning emerged.
What Is Place-Based Learning?

Place-based learning is a type of experiential pedagogy that puts students
in a physical location outside of the school building, allowing the commu-
nity to become the “classroom.” By engaging with the people or the
environment, the students experience learning that is not easily repli-
cated within the walls of a traditional classroom space. The actual process
of exploration enables students to establish connections with a site,
developing a sense of place. In this approach to learning, the loca-
tion, whether it is rural, urban, or in-between, is integral to the desired
learning outcomes. These learning outcomes are not simply getting
to know a geographic location; place-based learning can be a vehicle
for learning other academic content. Beyond learning about a place,
academic coursework related to biodiversity, language, civic education,
design, or sound can be integrated into the experience. Smith (2002)
identifies five themes in place-based education that can be adapted to
different settings: cultural studies; nature studies; real-world problem-
solving; internships and entrepreneurial opportunities; and induction into
community processes. In all of these areas, regardless of the setting, our
ultimate goal is to transform the way that students interact with their
world as well as their willingness to “promote a more just and sustainable
world” (Israel, 2012, p. 76).
1 PLACE-BASED LEARNING, GEOSPATIAL LITERACY, AND MAPS 3
Long before internet access brought the world into our classrooms, the
places where learning occurred were not always limited to the confines
of a four-walled room dedicated to the purpose of schooling. Students
ventured into their neighborhoods to explore, describe, and analyze,
whether it was leaving the one-room schoolhouse out on the prairie or by
taking an urban excursion. As we go back to the writings of John Dewey,
who was advocating “progressive education,” we see a call for teachers to
become “intimately acquainted with the conditions of the local commu-
nity, physical, historical, economic, occupational, etc. in order to utilize
them as educational resources” (Dewey, 1938, p. 40).
The value of place-based knowledge and experiences outside of school
is noted by many who suggest having students apply lessons from school
to everyday life (Buxton & Provenzo, 2011). Both John Dewey (1938)
and Paolo Freire (Freire, 2011; Freire & Campos, 1990) noticed that
what children learn outside of school is often devalued. The key difference
between these two educators is that Freire links the observation to an
analysis of power and privilege. He notes that children from different
social classes will come to the classroom with different sets of experiences,
with educational systems privileging certain knowledge and skills.
Sobel’s work on place-based education (2004) offers a foundation for
understanding how this pedagogy can take advantage of the local commu-
nity and environment “as a starting point to teach concepts in language
arts, mathematics, social studies, science and other subject areas across
the curriculum” (p. 6). Through these hands-on, real-world learning
experiences, the students:
• Develop stronger ties to their community;

• Enhance their appreciation for the natural world; and
• Have a heightened commitment to serving as active, contributing
citizens.
By actively engaging local citizens, community organizations, and envi-

ronmental resources, Sobel advocates for a place-based learning that
contributes to community vitality and environmental quality.
Sobel’s concern for the stewardship of our natural environment is part
of several educational movements connected with outdoor education. The
term was coined to be in-opposition to “indoor” education (i.e., a class-
room) and primarily focused on learning about the natural environment.
Over time, the field evolved to include a range of names and a variety
of purposes: environmental education, camping education, and conserva-
tion education, as well as experiential and place-based education (Quay
& Seaman, 2013). While these approaches share the common feature
of learning in settings beyond the classroom, some of them are closer
to “adventure” education that focus on the personal growth benefits
from overcoming uncertainty and obstacles (Ewert & Sibthorp, 2014).
Others foster students’ connection to place by viewing the community as
a classroom and encouraging students to “read” the landscape.
Courses that have service or community-based learning (Anderson,
2017), field trip, or study abroad components are naturally suited to
place-based learning because they often assume an obvious link to
the physical environment. To be effective, these experiences require a
thoughtful pedagogy that anchors student learning in a specific place
and facilitates the connections between conceptual material and geospa-
tial location. In order to make these learning environments meaningful,
a clear synergy needs to be created between out-of-classroom and in-
classroom or online experiences. Otherwise, students become academic
tourists, passing through their destinations without making connections
or gaining an appreciation for the significance of the place.
To address this need for making these learning environments mean-
ingful, some educators have developed place-based activities. The
pedagogy of place-based learning is applicable across disciplines and
emerged from several different areas. Surprisingly, many of these develop-
ments occurred outside of the field of geography (Israel, 2012). An early
attempt to reach across disciplines was City as Text, which originated
within the Honors Education community. Developed by Dr. Bernice
Braid (Braid & Long, 2000) and shared through workshops held by the
National Collegiate Honors Council, this technique involves the recur-
sive process of mapping, observing, listening, and reflecting (Machonis,
2008). Resulting excursions involve an extensive planning process, which
includes identifying a location and theme, selecting background materials
(texts), and creating several participant assignments. More than just
exploring a city, the goal for City as Text participants is the critical
thinking process that requires students to hone their observational skills
and generate questions that require locating additional information.
While analyzing a city “as text” is more likely to produce deep learning,
it also requires a significant time investment on the part of teachers
creating experiences as well as students participating in these experiences.
In Shatter the Glassy Stare (2008), Machonis devotes an entire section to

ideas for using the City as Text approach on a college campus to build
community among a specific cohort of students or to promote positive
“town and gown” relationships.
The Language of Place-Based Learning

Before going further, we should clarify how we are using the terminology
that is associated with place-based pedagogy. Because this approach spans
a number of disciplines, we find a variety of terms used, with the most
popular reference being to place-based education (PBE). Here we will use
the terms place-based learning and place-based education interchangeably.
The term “place” will be used to denote more than the physical loca-
tion or space as indicated by geographic or map coordinates. Consistent
with the discussions found among geographers (Agnew, 1987; Cress-
well, 2004; Semken, 2005) and social studies educators (Resor, 2010),
we consider two additional dimensions that make it possible to iden-
tify the meaning associated with physical locations: locale and sense of
place. Locale refers to the setting, which could include a listing of promi-
nent objects such as the number of schools in a town, trees in a yard, or
traffic cameras at an intersection (Resor, 2010). A sense of place denotes
“the meanings of and the attachments to a place held by a person or
group” (Semken, 2005, p. 149). This term involves a more “sentimen-
tal” and subjective notion of a particular geographic location; one person
might stand on a corner and observe a vibrant shopping area, and another
person might stand on the same corner and see the loss of a community
as the result of gentrification.
The same physical location is experienced by various individuals differ-
ently, depending on that person’s previous experiences and social location.
Sociologists often refer to a person’s social location within a given commu-
nity, meaning a person’s relative position to others in their community.
Social location is usually based on group memberships (i.e., race and
ethnicity, gender, religious affiliation) and can shape how a specific loca-
tion is experienced by individuals. Semken, Ward, Moosavi, and Chinn
(2017) and Ardoin (2006) extend our understanding by noting how
many different ways that meanings can be attached to place:
Place is defined by meaning, and many diverse forms of place meaning —

including, but not limited to, aesthetic, economic, recreational, or spiritual
value; familial or kincentric rootedness; and cultural, historical, political, or
scientific significance—can be associated with the same place, as different
individuals and communities will experience it and know it in different
ways. (Semken et al., p. 544)
Indeed, all of our life experiences “from cultural traditions to natural

phenomena” are defined by the power of place (de Blij, 2008, p. 234).
While most efforts at place-based education take into account these
contextual factors, we suggest that educators integrate an understanding
of how the social, political, or economic power structures define commu-
nities, impact the environment, and inform the spatial narratives that our
students bring to the classroom when planning course activities.
Learning activities that are designed to take into account these power
structures are referred to as part of a critical pedagogy of place. In this
book, we will advocate taking into account a critical perspective by
acknowledging the importance of:
• the elements of the social context, recognizing that historical and

contemporary power structures can and do shape our local commu-
nities and the natural environment,
• our students’ initial spatial narratives (Elwood, 2004), and
• reflection on how maps are socially constructed (Crampton, 2001;
Elwood, 2004; Monmonier, 2018).
Not only should place-based learning recognize these power structures,

but learning activities should also actively promote “social and ecolog-
ical justice rather than merely learning about the place” by empowering
students to become actively engaged participants in their own communi-
ties (Israel, 2012, p. 77; Gruenewald, 2003).
Place refers to a geographic location, a sense of place, and a locale
(Agnew, 1987). These are all observable from being in a place, but how
do we display the things that we observe? Maps allow us to visualize place-
based information and data, provided that as map readers we are familiar
with basic map reading skills. Indeed, interpreting maps requires its own
form of literacy.
Geospatial Literacy
The term geospatial, or sometimes simply spatial, describes something
with a geographic or topographic component: Think maps (it comes from
the Greek geo, meaning “earth”). Geo-referenced or geolocated data refer
to data that range from numerical statistics or photos to tweets, and are
tied to a location on the earth’s surface. Geological or built structures,
social or animal behaviors, or even wildlife can all be studied as geolocated
data.
Engaging in spatial thinking requires that students use the concepts of
space, the tools of representation, and processes of reasoning. The ability
to imagine three-dimensional shapes from two-dimensional architectural
drawings and to visualize DNA structure as a double-helix, or to rotate
a geometric object in your head are all examples of how spatial thinking
plays an important role in many different disciplines (National Research
Council, 2006). Spatially literate students:
• have the habit of mind of thinking spatially—they know where,

when, how, and why to think spatially;
• practice thinking spatially in an informed way—they have a broad
and deep knowledge of spatial concepts and spatial representations,
a command over spatial reasoning using a variety of spatial ways of
thinking and acting, and well-developed spatial capabilities for using
supporting tools and technologies; and
• adopt a critical stance to spatial thinking—they can evaluate the
quality of spatial data based on its source and its likely accuracy and
reliability; can use spatial data to construct, articulate, and defend a
line of reasoning or point of view in solving problems and answering
questions; and can evaluate the validity of arguments based on spatial
information (National Research Council, 2006, p. 4).
Here, we focus on a specific kind of spatial literacy, that of geospatial

literacy. Any information or data with a geographic component—meaning
it is tied to a physical location—is the type of geospatial data that can
be visualized on a map. Geospatial literacy is what we use “to visu-
alize and interpret location, distance, direction, relationships, change,
and movement over space” (Sinton, 2012). This means that students are
able to “read” geographic information and make connections to where
and when these data occur, and to explore the complexity and intercon-
nectedness of how economic, political, social, or ecological relationships
shape experience. Because the role of place—the actual physical loca-
tion—is important in place-based learning, we need to help our students
develop their geospatial literacy, which includes the skills needed to
create, analyze, and interpret map-based data. By asking guiding questions
such as, “Where do the locations occur on a map?” “What is nearby?”
“Who lives there?” “What physical features are present?” “What social or
environmental patterns can be observed?” we can develop a foundation
for more complex analysis.
The pedagogy of place-based learning asks that students make obser-
vations, collect data, and develop a sense of place about a specific physical
location. Placing this information on a map enables students to visualize
a two-dimensional representation of our three-dimensional world. The
role of geospatial literacy includes having students recognize shapes and
patterns from among the “clutter” of the data. These are skills that can
be learned; just as a radiologist learns how to look at an image to detect
an abnormality, we can help our students to develop their own spatial
thinking skills to look for patterns in the data.
Geospatial technologies allow users to utilize critical thinking skills to
locate, display, and analyze geographic information, and make sense of the
increasing amount of place-based data that are emerging. With advances
in geospatial technologies (geographic information systems, global posi-
tioning satellites, remote sensing, and image analysis, for example), more
and more geolocated data are being generated all the time, including
soil erodibility and other environmental conditions; sidewalk and trans-
portation access; posts to social media such as Twitter and Instagram;
and traffic congestion. This increases the need to teach students the skills
to make sense of these data; visual representations of patterns require new
visual and geospatial literacies to see interconnections and how actions in
one area can impact another. Geospatial technology tools and the under-
standing these tools can afford users is central to enabling students to
become engaged, globally competent citizens (Langran & Baker, 2016).
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technologies have also evolved
dramatically in recent years, increasing the ability for students to access
GIS tools through a browser and use these tools to analyze geolocated
data without specialized training. Anyone with basic skills to visually inter-
pret images can see that there are more instances of an event on one part
of the map than on another part of the map, or that this area on the
map is darker than that area on the map. While there is a certain intu-
itive aspect to map interpretation, a specific kind of literacy is required to
spatially think about the relationships between data points. The best way
to represent information on maps requires some level of visual interpre-
tation. While the location of data may be fixed, the way that we choose
to array that data must be intentionally designed to communicate the
intended message or observation.
In order to facilitate geospatial thinking, we need more information
on how people learn to interpret locations, their characteristics, their
distances, or their changes over time. For example, do we know whether
how people interpret their location influences their relationships with
the environment, or with other people? To begin addressing these gaps
between what we know about geospatial thinking and geospatial tech-
nologies, a research agenda identified three broad research areas that
are needed: student learning and outcomes; teacher training; and tech-
nical development (Baker et al., 2015). The second of these areas is
teacher training where a key question involves the best ways to train
teachers and teach students about geospatial literacy. In subsequent chap-
ters, we will discuss ways to structure place-based learning activities that
take advantage of what we already know about using geospatial tech-
nologies for learning. Some of the key course components that promote
geospatial literacy include capturing and communicating knowledge in
the form of a map; recognizing and interpreting patterns; understanding
geographic concepts of neighborhood, spatial interaction, competition for
space, territory, migration, and spatial context; the ways in which humans
express themselves visually as they describe and record the world using
coordinate systems, data, and map projections; and seeing the value of
geography as a basis for organizing and discovering information, not just
as a list of places on the Earth’s surface (Goodchild, 2006).
There can be multiple opportunities to develop spatial thinking as we
ask students to consider actions performed in space, thinking about space,
and thinking with space:
Walking to school, taking a shortcut to avoid a traffic jam, playing a team

sport such as football, or packing a suitcase—actions that are performed
in space—all require spatial thinking in a real-world or environmental
context. The second type of spatial thinking, thinking about space, is typi-
cally employed when individuals learn factual information, organized as
facts and generalizations, about how the world works. The third type of
spatial thinking, thinking with space, is more abstract yet a powerful tool.
Spatializing non-spatial data or using space as an organizing framework to
conceptualize problems and make decisions is an effective cognitive strategy
used frequently in problem solving. (Emphasis added, Bednarz & Kemp,
2011, p. 20)
Together, spatial literacy provides us with the abilities needed to work

and reason in a spatial world and make a picture “truly worth a thousand
words” (Goodchild, 2006, p. 5). Maps are one such picture that requires
a sufficient level of geospatial literacy.
Mapping
Central to place-based learning is contextual learning , and maps are a
tool that can visualize and scaffold this type of understanding. We can
take the conceptual ideas being learned in environmental studies, urban
planning, language learning, or other academic areas, and apply them to
real-world venues. When academic concepts are presented abstractly, it
is up to the learner to make connections to the world where they will
live and work. When course instructors help make these connections by
providing learning in the context of real-world applications and engaging
authentic learning environments, students can better internalize these
concepts (CORD, 2016). Maps can serve the learner as they explore an
area with the intent of making connections between classroom knowledge
and the real world. Mapping contributes to critical, multidimensional
thinking, specifically: categorizing and interpreting information; analyzing
and evaluating; and making inferences (Sinton & Bednarz, 2007).
When we anchor the analysis of a place using mapping, students
develop the skills and habits of perceiving, evaluating, and analyzing visual
information (questioning assumptions and points of view; using evidence
to reason; and illustrating the visible) (Sinton & Lund, 2007). A good
map tells a story. Maps are essentially telling the story of a commu-
nity; you can illustrate the story of a place over time, provide portraits
of the people who live there, explain conflicts, inspire action, compare
data, depict a journey, with having protagonists, struggles, resolutions…
many of which are the same evidence you would find in any compelling
narrative. More importantly, “A good map teaches you to ask a better
question” (Frye, as cited in Kerski, 2016). These questions might include
What if I classified the data differently? What if I added this variable?
and other “what-if” questions (Kerski, 2016). Today, the ease of using
mapping tools and access to online mapping have made maps collabo-
rative and shareable in new ways. Zooming out helps us to connect our
local community to the region and the globe. But as web-based maps have
become easy to generate and share, the need for critical thinking increases.
We must be asking, “Who made that map?” and “What kind of data did
they use?” Not only should we be asking inquiry questions about the map,
but about the data that goes into the map being used for analysis (Kerski,
2019). Thematic maps are important ways to tell stories, but taking a
three-dimensional world and making it into a two-dimensional represen-
tation requires decisions on projections, scale, and symbolization. Just
like any data visualization, they can be inaccurate or misleading, deriva-
tive maps can repeat bad data, and the adage “garbage in, garbage out”
applies. How to Lie with Maps author Mark Monmonier (2018) refers to
the “cartographic mischief” that can be from “electronic blunders” (p. 2)
or be deliberate—either for clarity, or in order to deliberately deceive the
viewer. Thus questioning mapmakers’ expertise or motives becomes an
important component of developing students’ geospatial literacy.
Mapping is not an objective activity. Blair (2011) reminds us that there
are “methodological hazards of reductionism and interpretation in the
mapping exercises” (p. 52). As we seek to encourage students to look
for patterns, we also risk that they may make generalizations. It is impor-
tant to spend time helping students to see these risks and understand the
pitfalls of such activities and interpretations. In the next chapter, we will
discuss the critical place-based pedagogies that have addressed many of
these issues.
Who Is Involved in Creating Maps? Collaboration, Participation,

and Beyond
In addition to analyzing map, let’s turn our focus to those who are
making the maps, and how map contributors can add geolocated or
georeferenced data using technology. Different individuals or groups can
contribute to the construction of maps through drawings, digital illustra-
tion, or online GIS maps where our own field-collected data is combined
with other available online base maps or data sets to tell our own story of
a place. The various ways that these data are collected often depend on
who is making the map (whether they be individuals or groups), where
the map is being created (urban, suburban, rural), and in what context
(academic course, study abroad, informal learning).
Mapping Together
The advances in online mapping, especially online GIS, have made it
possible for groups of people to contribute to a common map. Similar
to citizen science, collaborative mapping is a type of mapping activity
that uses “volunteered geographic information” or crowdsourcing to
populate a map with geolocated data. Similar to collaborative mapping,
participatory mapping is a type of mapping activity that uses data from
multiple people, though here specifically through contributions of and
collaboration with community stakeholders, with the intended goals of
empowerment and inclusion of people who might otherwise be simply
regarded as the objects of study (Solís, McCusker, Menkiti, Cowan, &
Blevins, 2018).
Having students engage in participatory mapping can facilitate the
abstract conceptualization of spatial connections. Emmel (2008) describes
this interactive group process as a research method used to uncover local
knowledge and provide an understanding of the relationships between
people, place, and community over time. By generating maps, participants
must focus their attention on features of a specific place. This resulting
map serves as a tangible reference point for discussing abstract concepts
that emerge from concrete descriptions. Using the same process, students
move from concrete descriptions to abstract conceptualization as they
portray their understandings of the subject being studied.
Participatory mapping often includes social goals. By calling upon
multiple groups of stakeholders and allowing volunteers to interact when
creating maps together, participatory mapping (PM) can locate assets in a
community, involve local citizens in area decision-making about develop-
ment, and identify endangered animals and trees. “A consistent aspiration
of PM has been to engage and empower marginalized groups in society
through the use of spatial technologies” (Brown & Kyttä, 2018, p. 1). For
example, university “youth mappers” in Uganda are using digital maps
to display microfinance locations in the rural areas outside of their city
to help local residents find these largely unmarked services. Students in
Costa Rica were mapping locations where they spotted trash in order for
the municipal government to decide where to place trash cans. Arlington
County in Virginia, USA surveyed the public with a map to identify where
commuters and residents felt bike routes were most needed.
With the advances in and the ubiquity of mobile devices, public partic-
ipation in mapping projects has become even easier. No longer does a
person need to sit down at a computer to indicate something they saw
in their neighborhood—they can do it right away when they spot some-
thing in public. The final product is a map co-owned with the community.
Using Participatory GIS (PGIS) has a lot of potential, but participants’
possible lack of understanding of the technology and geospatial literacy
can be a limitation in using the PGIS approach (Brown & Kyttä, 2018).
There is an assumption that those involved in participatory mapping
are the people who are local to that area, but the students can be defined
as “outsiders” to an area where they are mapping. In these situations,
outside participants may be viewed with distrust; they may encounter
language and communication barriers; and the resulting ownership of
the data can be unclear (Brown & Kyttä, 2018). “The challenge of
building and maintaining trust with participants is important across
all PM [participatory mapping] domains, but especially important in
indigenous/rural/community mapping because the process is typically
sponsored by individuals outside the community of interest” (Brown &
Kyttä, p. 6); additional challenges stem from using a broad, one-size-fits-
all participatory mapping approach due to the differences in how this type
of mapping is used in the global south with indigenous peoples versus
urban residents in Western countries, thus underscoring the need to take
social context, lived experiences, and perspectives of the community into
account.
Critical Mapping
Whether it is “critical cartography” (Allen & Queen, 2015), “critical
GIScience” (Solís et al., 2018), or the broader fields referred to as the
“critical pedagogy of place” (Gruenewald, 2003), this group of peda-
gogical approaches questions the “assumptions, practices, and outcomes
taken for granted in dominant culture and in conventional education”
(Gruenewald, 2003, p. 3). That process of challenging assumptions
involves two phases, according to Gruenwald. First we need to “iden-
tify, recover, and create material spaces and places that teach us how to
live well in our total environments (reinhabitation)” and second, we need
to “identify and change ways of thinking that injure and exploit other
people and places (decolonization)” (Gruenewald, 2003, p. 9). We will
be discussing this critical approach to place-based education and mapping
throughout this book.
Mapping for Study Abroad

Blair (2011) refines the idea of place-based learning by incorporating
urban mapping as an experiential learning pedagogy in study abroad
programs. One reason that place-based learning works well for study
abroad programs is because students often find themselves in surround-
ings that are unfamiliar, which prompts a closer examination particularly
when what they expect to see or what they consider to be “normal”
is missing. Like City as Text, Blair’s approach requires that students
use observation skills to create maps that are annotated with personal
photographs to anchor the conceptual understanding they gained from
course readings in the authentic context of urban neighborhoods. Recog-
nizing the importance of developing a conceptual map to frame their
experiences, Blair creates directed excursions that guide students through
the streets of Paris, increasing the likelihood that they will successfully
master the targeted course outcomes. By completing a series of excur-
sions, which were created to focus on particular aspects of the social and
urban fabric of Paris, students gain a much deeper understanding of the
course material that is anchored in place.
Mapping Cities, Suburbs, and Rural Areas

Cities become classrooms in place-based learning. Mapping cities provide
opportunities to observe and analyze the use of urban space; social rela-
tionships; and decision-making, planning, and renewal around growth,
change, and diversity. Whether investigating decisions that impact
people’s lives, focusing on the distribution of resources, or partnering
with the local community, a sense of responsibility, and stewardship can
be fostered by these types of activities. One type of mapping that works
particularly well in urban areas is food mapping . Participants consider local
access to food and identification of possible “food deserts” while consid-
ering health, economics, and ecological impacts associated with access to
food in an urban area (Wight & Killham, 2014).
Cities have their own landscapes that can be “read,” mapped, and
analyzed for their human activity and environmental characteristics. Blair
(2011) describes a city as “a collective, social, and living intervention
itself shaped by historically contingent economic, political, and cultural
forces, which, if one has the appropriate maps, guides and mental dispo-
sitions, can indeed help reveal the human rationality and internal logic
that determined the city’s shape, life, and meaning” (p. 37). While we
often think of urban places as spaces for human activity, these human
activities have an impact on the environment through pollution, energy

consumption, etc. Nature exists in cities too—these natural habitats
can serve as locations for urban habitat mapping activities, encouraging
participants to respect nature in urban contexts (Swayze, 2009).
Suburban mapping can provide a useful comparison point for cities, by
asking access questions such as the location of parks, the quality and price
of food, or ease of using public transportation. Comparisons between
older or newer suburbs can prompt a discussion of social change over
time. Examining the drivers of change can lead to discussion of displace-
ment, diversity, homeownership, gentrification, and the identity of place.
Many students, and particularly those from small towns or suburbs where
they may not have needed to use maps would benefit from some extra
instruction on how to make use of maps for navigation purposes (Blair,
2011; Kelly, 2009).
Mapping rural spaces provides wonderful opportunities to incorporate
areas such as geology, watershed studies, landforms, and environmental
education, but has its own challenges. Huffling, Carlone, and Benavides’
(2017) response to a study by Zimmerman and Weible (2016) explored
place-based learning as a tool to help students who, despite learning about
the local watershed, were struggling with how to propose collective,
action-oriented strategies to address poor water quality. These authors
highlight the increasing need for science and environmental educators
to re-envision effective pedagogy for rural communities as “economic
instability amidst dwindling natural resources brings into sharp relief the
tensions between historical, economic, indigenous, cultural, agricultural,
recreational, and social uses of land” (Huffling et al., 2017, p. 34).
Mobile Mapping
The way that we are able to record geographic information has changed
dramatically in a short period of time. Years ago, GIS was confined to
desktop applications in which inserting non-numeric data collected in the
field, such as images, was challenging. More than ten years ago, when
teaching a course that used images collected as data during place-based
learning, the students used handheld GPS units to mark waypoints, and
took photos with the GPS unit appearing in the foreground, with the
historic building or monument in the background (Langran & Alibrandi,
2008). This, of course, led to some fuzzy images (Fig. 1.1).
Fig. 1.1 Mobile mapping: gravesite of P.T. Barnum (Photo by E. Langran)
Back in the computer lab, we would compile the data into spread-
sheets by hand, make shapefiles, and several steps later, we would be able
to use our networked GIS software to have the geolocated images and
other data appear in the onscreen map. Now, with mobile devices such
as smartphones and tablets, these data can be directly added to the map
from the field in a new era of what we refer to as “mobile mapping.”
Mobile devices can stimulate learning by supporting students in the
field as they craft their own analysis. In this type of inquiry pedagogy,
students identify a location of interest, and capture geotagged voice
notes and photos on location. Students can engage in the wonder of
asking questions and discovering answers (Dodge, 2011). Mobile devices
support the integration of place-based learning back into the classroom,
where the instructor can guide student discussions, modeling the process
of analysis. The Open University Innovation Report (Ferguson et al.,
2019) named place-based learning on its 2019 list of innovating pedago-
gies, not because it is a new method, but because of the new possibilities
provided by mobile technologies to support place-based learning. Both
the ubiquity of mobile devices, as well as the comfort level and ease of use
among a wider range of people, make this technology easier to integrate
into instruction. Many people are already using location-aware applica-

tions and navigational aids from mobile devices for personal uses and
informal learning experiences, so leveraging these geospatial tools makes
sense.
How mobile learning bridges the gap between the classroom

and exploring communities
When we use the term “mobile learning,” we are referring to using mobile
technology (such as mobile phones, tablets, and other portable digital
devices) for learning anywhere and at any time. This technology makes
it possible to use smartphones and tablets outside of the classroom for
place-based learning. Across the globe, this form of place-based learning
has helped transcend limited infrastructure, bringing internet access to
communities that will never have access to fixed-line computer labs and
in contrast to a desktop computer, offering an affordable alternative.
Mobile learning makes it possible to use smartphones and tablets
outside of the classroom for place-based learning. Estimates put the
number of people who own mobile phones at 5 billion, with half of the
devices being smartphones (Silver & Cornibert, 2019). While the growth
has not necessarily been distributed equally around the globe, the hope
is that more people now have access to educational content in places
where books may be scarce. The UNESCO Mobile Learning Policy Guide-
lines (2013) articulate several affordances that mobile devices provide in
learning:
• These customizable personal devices facilitate personalized learning
and assist learners with disabilities, in part because they are owned by
individuals and carried around throughout the day;
• The interactive features of mobile devices and the ability to automate
distribution to devices provide immediate feedback and assessment;
• Because people carry the devices with them, they enable anytime,
anywhere learning;
• They enable students to listen to lectures or study at home,
ensuring the productive use of time spent in classrooms and improve
communication and administration;
• They build new communities of learners;
• Location-aware devices move learning to new settings, sometimes
using augmented reality, and support situated learning;
• Access to cloud storage enhances seamless learning and bridge formal
and informal learning;
• It has been successful to minimize educational disruption in conflict

and disaster areas and helps maximize cost-efficiency.
The ability to use mobile devices on location to conduct mapping activities
advances the potential for engaging students and structuring their expe-
rience with place-based learning. GIS has for many years depended on
desktop computing. We are finally at a time when mobile devices can be
used to collect data out in the field, sending information seamlessly to an
online map for analysis. Mobile mapping uses a smartphone or tablet to
collect data that are tied to a physical location on earth and feeds the infor-
mation to an online map. These data can include photographs, sounds, a
numerical count of physical features, and descriptive attributes.
Mobile learning in formal educational environments requires new
pedagogical approaches to leverage the affordances of the technology.
Additionally, there are several components that must be in place: “(1)
material support, (2) logistical support, (3) instructional support, (4)
curriculum support, and (5) community support” (National Research
Council, 2006, p. 219). These are important considerations for planning
place-based learning.
Informal Learning
Informal learning occurs when we explore national parks or move into a
new neighborhood. In our pursuit of developing a skill, and in answering
a question or solving a problem, we have a spontaneous and learner-driven
experience that often takes advantage of collaboration, bringing together
communities of learners who share tips, expertise, and lessons learned.
This type of informal learning generally occurs outside of classroom
education and training. While it diverges from place-based education in
that it lacks instructor-assigned learning objectives and structure, it shares
the value placed on experiential learning in authentic settings. As we seek
to develop lifelong learners and professionals who are able to transfer
classroom knowledge to real-world situations, an inquiry-based and place-
based project can borrow from informal learning literature and from what
we have learned from observing popular location-based and location-
enabled gaming applications, such as Pokémon Go and Wizards Unite.
Alternate reality games that are location dependent demonstrate how a
story-driven transmedia platform can engage players to interact with place
and other players. Being at a particular location triggers an event in the
mobile application.
Geocaching was an early location-based gaming activity, using hand-

held GPS devices. With the advances in augmented reality uses of
smartphones, the opportunities for new location-based activities increase.
While none have yet reached the popularity of Pokémon Go or longevity
of geocaching, there are numerous small projects that allow people to
develop location-based mixed reality games and activities on mobile
storytelling platforms. For example, LocoMatrix (http://www.locoma
trix.com) develops location-based games for schools that allow players
to move through “virtual archeology” and use the application to “dis-
cover” and “dig” a Roman villa from their school field. Museums and
parks, which have already been informal learning sites, are also looking to
leverage the ubiquity of GPS-enabled devices such as smartphones.
The Role of Place in Your Classroom

When considering whether place-based pedagogy is appropriate, the
central question becomes, “How could place-based learning contribute to
an understanding or deeper knowledge of the subject?” Steven Semken’s
work in the field of geoscience generated a list of five core characteristics
of place-based education that have been used to distinguish this approach
as unique from others:
1. The content is focused explicitly on the attributes of a place (e.g.,

geology, climate, ecology, culture, economics, history).
2. The activity acknowledges, and usually explicitly incorporates the
diverse meanings that place holds for the instructor, the students,
and the community (e.g., locally situated traditional knowledge;
toponymy).
3. The activity takes advantage of authentic experiences in that place,
or in an environment that strongly evokes the place (e.g., experi-
ential learning, fieldwork, service learning, immersive virtual field
environments).
4. The activity promotes, and ideally supports, pro-environmental and
culturally sustainable practices and lifeways in the places that are
studied.
5. The activity enriches the sense of place held by students and
instructors alike (Semken et al., 2017, p. 545).
Table 1.1 Suitability for place-based learning
Differing roles of place-based inquiry Sample investigations
Inquiries best only undertaken when anchored in Impact of climate change:

place. The lesson is about where a phenomenon • on sea level in coastal areas, and
occurs or about attributes of place • on rainfall in agricultural regions
• temperature variations by
continent
Access to healthy food in walking
distance from public housing
complexes
Distribution of health care services
relative to transportation routes
Inquiries that are enhanced by spatial knowledge. Comparison of storefront windows
Although spatial tools are used, the location data featuring multiple languages in two
is not the main focus of these lessons different parts of the city
Inquiries not suited to spatial exploration. Spatial Comparative analysis of the plot
tools are not necessary to accomplish the task at lines in two novels
hand Archive of LatinX murals created
by political dissidents
Note All of these could have a spatial attribute added but don’t as stated here
These characteristics help us differentiate between the type of topics

in which geospatial knowledge is the focus of the intended learning
and those that may use geospatial technology as a tool to learn about
something else.
In Table 1.1, we offer a few examples of investigations that are well
suited to place-based learning as well as investigations that are not:
Chapter Conclusion: The Case

for Place-Based Education
The calls for place-based education have spanned many decades. Whether
these calls are based on privileging the knowledge each student brings to
the classroom or on an interest in engaging with the local community, all
suggest that place-based pedagogy is an effective strategy. In the chapter
that follows, we will take a closer look at why this may be the case, and
focusing on critical place-based inquiry.
As we were completing our work on this book, COVID-19 wreaked
havoc around the world. Writing about place-based learning during a
pandemic underscores both the potential as well as the challenges associ-
ated with place-based learning. The spread of the coronavirus highlighted
the many ways that where we live and work shapes the differential oppor-
tunities and challenges experienced by our students. Proximity to health
care services like testing or emergency care and residential density were
closely associated with infection rates. And those who could afford to
stay home and self-isolate had a lower chance of contracting the virus
than those who served on the front line. As teachers and students across
the U.S. (and around the world) attended school on virtual platforms,
the pandemic offered a striking example of how place matters in our daily
lives.
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CHAPTER 2
How and Why Placed-Based Learning Works
Educators can draw upon several bodies of literature to uncover how

and why place-based learning offers an effective way to engage students.
This chapter integrates these diverse literatures by outlining the process of
spatial thinking and how student learning occurs within situated contexts.
We consider the scholarship that addresses why place-based pedagogy can
create transformative learning environments and focus on what is known
about the learning process as well as the contextual issues associated with
inclusion, equity, and empowerment of students from underrepresented
or marginalized groups.
Existing research suggests that students construct knowledge through
interactions with teachers, their peers, and their environments. Engaging
learning activities can be designed to draw on an abstracted conceptual
scenario constructed by the teacher or an authentic scenario defined by
the boundaries a physical location. Place-based exploration gives students
access to situated learning environments that afford opportunities for
students to analyze complex phenomena from multiple angles of obser-
vation. Here, we consider the critical pedagogy of place literature that
examines how students’ different histories and life experiences impact the
many ways they understand the same place-based learning environment.
Our goal is to look across existing disciplinary literatures to develop a
critical, integrative approach to place-based inquiry.
© The Author(s) 2020 25

E. Langran and J. DeWitt, Navigating Place-Based Learning,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55673-0_2
Spatial Thinking
Speaking to a broad audience in The Harvard Business Review, Golds-
berry (2013) makes the case for expanding students’ exposure to
spatial thinking in our educational system. He begins by noting that
the Geography Department was the only program ever eliminated at
Harvard University since its founding. Similar closings at other universi-
ties followed, which Goldsberry contends is ironic because soon thereafter
technological developments like Google Maps increased the everyday use
of geospatial technology. The result of the geography department clos-
ings was that fewer students learned spatial reasoning skills such as reading
maps. Of greater concern however is the fact that fewer students were
learning to create maps and analyze spatial data sets, despite the advances
in online GIS (Alibrandi & Baker, 2008). Like many others, Goldsberry
concludes that we need to recommit to the type of curriculum that
develops “a generation of great data visualizers who can tackle our chal-
lenges” (Goldsberry, 2013, para 8). While Goldsberry certainly was not
the first to make this observation, publication of the Harvard Business
Review article suggests that a broader conversation was needed about
spatial education.
Meanwhile, conversations about spatial literacy were well underway
within many academic circles of educators such as those from the honors
community, geoscience, environmental studies, or K-12 social studies.
These conversations rarely took place across disciplinary domains and
often stopped short of generating a comprehensive understanding of how
spatial thinking could be taught. An early exception resulting from collab-
oration is the National Research Council’s Learning to Think Spatially
(2006). This NRC report summarized the analytical processes that make
up spatial thinking and the need for systematically developing students’
spatial reasoning skills.
Children develop mental maps based on direct experience with their
environment such as the routes they take from home to school or the
playground. In the process of their daily lives, they relate these experi-
ences to their own relative position. As children grow, they add indirect
experiences such as the knowledge gained from video, images, and text
about places, and develop a geocentric view that sees how places are
connected (Kimerling, Buckley, Muehrcke, & Muehrcke, 2009). Without
spatial reasoning, the resulting mental maps and cartographic maps may
not necessarily match. Place-based learning is among the ways to connect
2 HOW AND WHY PLACED-BASED LEARNING WORKS 27
direct experience with a geospatial representation. Our brains learn better

when presented with authentic challenges that are grounded in a partic-
ular location and context. In the next section of this chapter we will
look at what is known about how the brain works and why this infor-
mation suggests place-based learning environments are optimal learning
environments.
The Human Brain: Designed to Learn “On the Go”

Although research on how particular learning conditions are better
than others is still evolving, we know that where we learn matters.
Humans have obviously been learning outside of a classroom much longer
than within in classrooms. Developmental molecular biologist Dr. John
Medina describes the “human performance envelope”—the conditions
under which the brain most efficiently and accurately processes infor-
mation. According to Medina, “The human brain appears to have been
designed to solve problems related to surviving in an outdoor setting,
in unstable meteorological conditions, and to do so in near constant
motion” (Medina, 2008, pp. 4–5). These conditions are very different
from the static environment of a classroom.
Classrooms are designed the way they are because of tradition and
convenience, not because they offer an ideal physical environment for
learning. While classrooms are clearly a more practical and climate-
controlled way of educating large numbers of students, it is important
to recognize that teaching students how to exist in the world by working
in an enclosed room is not an optimal situation. In fact, we know that
when children are learning outdoors, they naturally “encounter oppor-
tunities for decision making that stimulate problem solving and creative
thinking because outdoor spaces are often more varied and less structured
than indoor spaces,” and “induce curiosity and the use of imagination”
(Burdette & Whitaker, 2005, p. 48). So, it is not just learning, but specif-
ically problem-solving, planning, and organization, executive function,
visual thinking, pattern recognition, and working memory that are given
a boost by outdoor environments (Jarrett, 2019; Pica, 2014).
We should design learning experiences that take into account these
optimal learning conditions from neuroscience research. While it is not
practical for students to be schooled entirely outside of a classroom
setting, there are times when we can integrate activities that take advan-
tage of optimal learning conditions. As new brain research is being
published, we learn more about how the physical environment impacts

brain functioning, from space design to the temperature of the learning
environment (Cheema & Patrick, 2012). The University of Exeter’s
Medical School is heading up a large-scale study on the positive mental
impacts of green and blue spaces, such as parks and beaches (Bratman
et al., 2019; University of Exeter, 2017). This study builds on previous
research conducted by the European Center for Environment & Human
Health. Many educators who tout the benefits of outdoor education point
to how outdoor education programs provide learning pathways to “tactile
and other sensory-driven modes of inquiry” (Auer, 2008, p. 7). Although
we may not have complete information about how to design an optimal
learning environment, the current evidence suggests first that movement
is good, and second, that the stimulation from being outdoors also is
good.
The Link Between Movement and Learning

There is a connection between where we learn, what we do when we
are learning, and the amount of learning that occurs. Admittedly there
is a lot we do not know about the brain, but we have evidence that
there is an important connection between movement and learning:
movement generates neural pathways, effectively changing the neurons
in our brains. Hannaford (2005) explains how movement leads to
learning by reminding us about how the brain develops. Each stage of a
baby’s progression of learning to move involves taking in sensory input,
balancing, and coordinating limbs. This movement develops neural path-
ways that are essential for learning. For example, crawling, a movement
which activates development of nerve pathways between the cerebral
hemispheres, becomes the basis for the visual coordination needed for
reading (eye teaming). Coordinated muscular activities stimulate the
production of neurotrophins, triggering the growth of existing nerve
cells. This process increases the number of new nerve cells and neural
connections in the brain (Hannaford, 2005). In this way, physical activity
stimulates the brain more than seat learning. We have some evidence of
the correlation between higher levels of fitness and academic test scores
(California Department of Education, 2002). More and more studies are
finding that physical exercise is important for a healthy brain (Adami et al.,
2018; van Dongen, Kersten, Wagner, Morris, & Fernández, 2016; Wein-
berg, Hasni, Shinohara, & Duarte, 2014) and what we refer to as “brain
plasticity”—our ability to reorganize and create new neural pathways.
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NARRAGANSETT WEAVERS
During the first years of this century there could be found in every
English town, village, and hamlet many hand-looms and many
weavers who on these looms wove for their neighbors and for small
cloth-jobbers strong homespun woollen stuffs, rag-carpets, woollen
sheets, cotton and wool bed-spreads, flannels, coarse linen and tow,
heavy cotton cloth and fine table and bed linen. These hand-looms
lingered in use till about 1840. So universal was then the extinction
of hand-weaving through the vast growth of power-loom manufacture
and of spinning by steam-spindle, and so sudden and complete the
destruction and vanishing of all the old-time implements and
machines, that when, ten years ago, under the stimulus of Ruskin’s
fiery appeal for the revivifying of hand-spinning and hand-weaving,
these household arts were again started in Westmoreland, but a
single linen-loom could be found for the work.
In the American colonies hand-weaving was also a universal
industrial art. In no part of the country has the industry lingered
longer than in old Narragansett. In many old New England towns
single hand-looms can be found, some in running order, and with
owners capable of running them to make rag-carpets. Others are still
standing, cobwebbed and dusty, in attic lofts, lean-to chambers,
woodsheds, or barns, with no one to set the piece or fill the shuttles.
In Narragansett I know a score of old looms in good running order,
though, save in one instance, set only for weaving rag-carpets; in
many cases the owners, who do not make weaving a trade, will not
“start them up” for weaving less than a hundred yards of carpeting.
This is a long strip for a room in a cottage or farm-house, so
neighbors frequently join together in ordering these carpets, and in
company send vast rolls of the filling, which is made of inch-wide
strips of cloth of all colors and materials sewed in long strips. Within
a few years these old hand-looms have been used for weaving rag-
portières made of silk strips.
Weaving was a very respectable occupation. It is told that the
regicide Judge Whalley lived to great old age in Narragansett—one
hundred and three years—and earned his living by weaving. The son
of the Congregational minister at Narragansett, Dr. Torrey, was a
weaver. The province was full of weavers. Miss Hazard gives the
names of many in her “College Tom.” With all the spinning-jennies
for spinning a vast supply of thread and yarn, there were no power-
looms in Narragansett till 1812. Hand-looms made up all the yarn
and thread that were produced. The prince of Narragansett weavers
was Martin Read. In 1761 he was baptized in St. Paul’s Church as
“Martin Read, an adult, the Parish Clerk.” He was a devoted lover of
the church and was sexton for many years. He led the singing, and it
is said that under his leadership the Venite was first chanted in
America. During the troubled and rector-less days of the Revolution,
he helped the parish work along by reading morning-prayers and the
funeral-service for the dead.
He was apprenticed, an orphan, at seven years of age to a diaper-
weaver, and served till he was of age, with one term only of
schooling; but he was ambitious and read eagerly instructive books,
especially on weaving and kindred arts. He married the daughter of
an Irish weaver, and soon had journeymen and apprentices, whom
he taught to sing as they wove; and when they did not sing the men
whistled the airs, and with singing and whistling the work speeded.
This singing at the loom was not a peculiarity of Martin Read’s. We
know the exclamation of Falstaff: “I would I were a weaver, I could
sing Psalms and all manner of songs.” Nares says weavers were
generally good singers, and that as they sat at their work they
practised part-singing. Many of the weavers in Queen Elizabeth’s
day were Flemish Calvinists and therefore given to psalm-singing,
hence Falstaff’s reference.
One weaver, named James Maxwell, wrote some “Weaver’s
Meditations” in rhyme in 1756. The frontispiece of his book—his
portrait at his loom—is thus inscribed:
“Lo, how ’twixt heaven and earth I swing,

And whilst the shuttle swiftly flies,
With cheerful heart I work and sing,
And envy none beneath the skies.”
Martin Read reared his family well, and in the Episcopal Church.
His son, Rev. Dr. Read, preached for many years at Christ’s Church
in Poughkeepsie. He wove coverlets, blankets, broadcloth, flannel,
worsted, linen, tow-cloth, and calamanco. This last was a glossy
woollen twilled fabric, sometimes woven in a pattern in the warp.
James Fontaine, a Huguenot weaver, says it was made of a fine
double-twisted worsted. It was much used for the nightgowns and
banians worn by substantial citizens of the day, and for women’s
winter-gowns.
Other goods made by Weaver Read were duroy, durant, and
crocus, a coarse tow-stuff for servants’ wear. This word, crocus, still
may be heard in Virginia, and perhaps elsewhere in the South,
where it was more and longer used than in Narragansett.
Martin Read lived near the old church he so dearly loved, and a
sightly spot it was for a home. Still standing beside the church
foundation, the site where the church first stood, is the deserted
house in which Martin Read lived and wove and whistled and sung.
On the road near his home lives to-day the last of the old-time
weavers, one who can weave woollen and linen stuffs. Hand-
weaving is not with him an accidental industrial makeshift, but his
every-day occupation and means of livelihood. He learned to weave
from one of Martin Read’s apprentices.
His low, weather-beaten house, set in a close-walled garden, is
one of the most picturesque in old Narragansett. We entered from a
glory of midsummer sunlight into a cool, pale-green light which
penetrated the rooms through the heavy shadows of the rugged old
cedar-trees that overhung the roof and the ancient lilacs that pressed
close to the windows.
There has ever been associated in my mind with the trade of
weaving the pale and sickly appearance and bearing of many
English mill weavers; and, though ever of country life, this Yankee
weaver was no exception to the rule. His skin, of extreme delicacy,
was pale, yet suffused at times with that semi-transparent flush
which is seldom seen save on those whose life is wholly indoors. His
hair and beard were long and white, and had evidently been light-
brown before they were white; his bright blue eyes looked pleasantly
and intelligently out from the wisps of white hair. His visible attire was
a clean, but collarless, white shirt and a pair of blue overalls; his feet
were bare. We mounted with him the narrow enclosed staircase to
the loom-loft.
There was such a flood of color out of doors, the fields and trees
were so green, the tangle of larkspurs in the garden was so blue, the
sunbeams so radiant, that the attic seemed but a dull abiding-place
for a summer’s day; but as the eye grew accustomed to the dimmer
light and learned to avoid the piercing arrows of sunshine that
burned in through the heart-shaped holes in the shutters and made
every mote of wavering dust in their path a point of unbearable
glitter, then the attic seemed quiet and peaceful, and its shadows
were grateful; and even the bang, bang of the loom when it was
started up was not a garish rattle. Heaps of gay woollen yarns lay
under the eaves, and a roll or two of rag-carpeting and strips of
worn-out bed-coverlets of various patterns were hung on the beams
or piled in heaps. There were vast boxes of cotton twine; and many
yarn-beams ready wound, and swifts and quilling-wheels and
“scarnes,” many in number, thrust under the garret eaves. Among
the discarded wool-wheels and flax-wheels heaped high in the
corner—obsolete before their fellow, the hand-loom—I did not peer
deep. Though neglected, they are jealously treasured, for “that was
grandma’s foot-wheel,” and “Aunt Eunice used that wool-wheel sixty-
two year,” showed that what seemed to me useless lumber was
haloed with association and tradition. I have never seen or felt
elsewhere any such picture, any such atmosphere of an industrial
life that is forever past, as that old-time weaving. The dim half-light of
the loom-room and the darker garret beyond; the ancient chairs that
thrust out a broken arm, and tables that put forth a claw-foot from the
shadows; the low buzzing of hornets that fluttered against the upper
skylight or hung in dull clusters on the window-frame—hornets so
dull, so feeble, so innocuous in their helplessness that they seemed
the ancients of their day; the eerie clamor of swallows in the
chimney; the pungent aroma of “dry, forgotten herbs,” that swayed in
the summer wind from every rafter; and the weaver, pale and silent,
laboriously weaving his slow-growing web with a patience of past
ages of workers, a patience so foreign to our present high-pressure
and double-speed rates that he seemed a century old, the very spirit
of colonial, nay, of mediæval days.
There was a monotonous yet well-controlled precision in this
weaver’s work that was most soothing, and that seems to be a
characteristic influence of the homespun industries. It was felt by
Wordsworth and voiced in his sonnet:
“Grief, thou hast lost an ever-ready friend

Now that the cottage spinning-wheel is mute.”
This precision in work is that of the skilled hand and thinking brain
controlling the machine, not the vast power of steam relentlessly
crowding the overworked body and dulled brain.
By this hand-weaving, as if to prove Ruskin’s glowing and inspiring
assertions, this weaver earns an independent living in intelligent
work, of reasonable hours, in a comfortable house, and in conditions
favorable to health—a vast contrast to the overworked, unhealthy,
poorly fed, stultified factory-worker. His business has so prospered of
late that he has had a trade-card printed at the village printer’s like
any other independent manufacturer. From it I learn that he weaves
rag-carpets, bed-coverlets, and hap-harlots. Hap-harlots, forsooth!
could anyone believe that obsolete word had been used since
Holinshed’s day? He wrote in 1570, in his “Chronicles of England,”
etc.:
“Our fathers have lien full oft upon straw pallets or rough
mats, covered onlie with a sheet under coverlets made of
dagswain or hap-harlots, and a good round log under their
heads instead of a bolster.”
Yet here have been Narragansett weavers weaving hap-harlots,
and sleeping under hap-harlots, and speaking of hap-harlots as
though three centuries ago were as yesterday. I presume they have
made dagswains also, since there still exists bills of Narragansett
shepherds for dagging sheep.
The old-time cotton and wool bed-spreads or coverlets, seen of
old on every four-post bedstead, he now sells for portières and
bathroom rugs, as well as for bed and couch spreads. They are
woven in simple geometric patterns, just as in the times of the
ancient Britons, when the wools of the weft were dyed with woad and
broom. The patterns are nearly all over a century old. He has a worn
pattern-book with bewildering rules for setting the heddles for over
fifty designs. Quaint of name are the patterns: “chariot-wheels and
church-windows,” is a bold, large design; “church-steps,” a simpler
one; “bachelors’ fancy,” “devil’s fancy,” “five doves in a row,”
“shooting-star,” “rising sun,” “rail fence,” “green veils,” offer little in
their designs to give reason for their names. “Whig rose,” “Perry’s
Victory,” and “Lady Washington’s fancy,” show an historical influence
in naming. “Orange-peel” is simply a series of oblong hexagons
honeycombed together. “All summer and all winter” was similar.
“Bricks and blocks” is evenly checkered. “Capus diaper” is more a
complicated design for weaving damask linen, taking five harnesses.
Floral names are common, such as “Dutch tulip,” “rose in bloom,”
“pansies in the wilderness,” “five snow-balls,” etc.
The loom on which this Narragansett weaver works might be six
centuries old. You may see precisely similar ones pictured by
Hogarth in the middle of the eighteenth century; and an older one
still in the Campanile at Florence, by Giotto, in 1334.
These excerpts from a letter of Weaver Rose’s give some pleasant
weaver’s lore, and are in the lucid, simple, and quaint English to be
expected of a man who still weaves and talks of hap-harlots:
“My grandfather and grandmother Robert and Mary
Northrup lived at what is now called Stuart Vale but then
known as the Fish Pond, in a little hamlet of four houses, only
one of which, my grandfather’s, is now standing. He owned a
shore and fished in the spring and wove some at home and
went out amongst the larger farmers working at his trade of
weaving, whilst his wife carried on the weaving at home and
had a number of apprentices. He learned his trade of weaving
of Martin Read, the deacon of St. Paul’s Church, who lived a
few rods from the church. He died in 1822, his wife lived till
1848. The spool I gave you was made by Langworthy Pierce,
a veteran of the Revolution. It has the initials of his name. I
send you now one of his shuttles used for weaving
broadcloth, and a square of linen I have woven for you of a
pattern of five harnesses called Browbey. The looms here in
Narragansett were all made by local carpenters. Stephen
Northrup made looms, and Freeborn Church made looms and
spinning wheels. I have 2 of his make. Friend Earle! more
money can be made by weaving than farming. I have wove 30
yards of rag carpet in one day at 10 cents a yard; or 23 cents
a yard when I found the warp. There was a man here by the
name of Eber Sherman, he called himself Slippery Eber. He
died in the war of 1812; his widow worked at spinning for 25
cents per day and supported herself and one son well on that
wage. One dollar and a half per week was regular wage for a
woman’s work. It took a woman one week to weave a coverlet
of 3 yards long and 2-1/2 yards wide. Mahala Douglas went
out to work at one dollar and a half per week making butter
and cheese, milking seven cows every week day and nine on
Sunday. She died leaving a large Estate, several thousand
dollars, which her Legatees had no trouble in spending in six
weeks. My grandfather was one of eight children. One brother
was Rev. William Northrup; Thurston Northrup, another
brother, was a school-teacher and a weaver of coverlets and
cloth. John Northrup was called Weaver John. He was a
coverlet weaver. John Congdon was a maker of Weavers’
reeds or slays. I have 70 or 80 of his make in my house. I
have a reed that my grandfather Northrup had made when he
went to the Island of Rhode Island weaving Broadcloth. He
received 50 cents per day pay. Good Cream Cheese was 3
cents a pound at the same time of the Embargo in the war of
1812. I have an Eight and Twenty slay with 29 Beer that cost
one dollar, made by John Congdon 70 years ago, as good as
when made. He lived in North Kingston.”
The word slay or sley, meaning a weavers’ reed, has not been
used commonly in England for many years, and is contemporary
with hap-harlot. A beer was a counting-off of forty warp-threads.
It may be seen by this letter how many classes of workmen were
kept busily employed by these homespun industries; makers of
looms, wheels, reeds, scarnes, raddles, temples, swifts, niddy-
noddys, spools, and shuttles; and turners of warp-beams and cloth-
beams. The proper shaping of a shuttle was as important as the
shaping of a boat’s hull. When the shuttle was carefully whittled out,
smoothed off with glass, lightly shod with steel, and marked by burnt-
in letters with the maker’s initials, it was a proper piece of work, one
for a craftsman to be distinctly proud of. Spools could be turned on a
lathe but were marked by hand. No wonder our weaver loved his old
worn-out rubbish; every piece had been made and used by his
kinsfolk and neighbors, who had put into every spool, shuttle, and
loom good, faithful hand-work; and, like the cloths he wove, they
wore well.
Weaver Rose would be an unimpeachable candidate for many of
our modern patriotic-hereditary societies. One great-great-
grandfather held a commission under King George III., which the
weaver still has. Others were members of the provincial assemblies.
Two great-uncles were taken on board a Yankee privateer in the
Revolution, carried to England to Dartmoor Prison, and never heard
of afterward. The son of one of those patriots was captured in the
War of 1812, and kept eight years at Dartmoor, while he was
mourned in Narragansett as dead. He was then released, returned
home, and held to his death an office under the government at
Wickford, a Narragansett seaport. One great-uncle was starved to
death in the prison-ship Jersey in the Revolution, and another lost
his life in Newport during imprisonment by the British. Grandfather
James Rose was with the famous Kingston Reds in the Battle of
Rhode Island and other Revolutionary encounters; and the weaver’s
father, William Rose, fought in the War of 1812. His great-great-
grandfather Eldred killed the famous Indian warrior Hunewell, after
that cruel Narragansett tragedy, the Swamp Fight. Hunewell was
naked and covered with grease, but he was not slippery enough to
escape the bitter Englishman, who had been fighting for days. This
tragedy was at Silver Spring, about two miles from the weaver’s
home. Another Indian chased Eldred, but without capturing him. The
chase was long, and Eldred did not spend much time in looking
backward, but he never forgot the Indian’s face; and some years
later he met in Newport an Indian who was very smooth and friendly,
but whom he at once recognized as his old-time enemy. The weaver
thus grimly and laconically tells the sequel: “Grandfather got an awl
and settled it in his forehead and finished him.” Great-grandmother
Austin was one of sixteen children. Their names were Parvis, Picus,
Piersus, Prisemus, Polybius, Lois, Lettice, Avis, Anstice, Eunice,
Mary, John, Elizabeth, Ruth, Freelove. All lived to be three-score and
ten, and one to be five-score and two years old.
I have dwelt somewhat at length on the sturdy fighting ancestry of
this weaver, with a distinct sense of pleasure at the quality of his
forebears. He is, in the best sense, a pure American, with not a drop
of admixture of the blood from recent immigrations. Some of his
ancestors were those who made the original Petaquamscut
purchase from the Indians, and here he lives on the very land they
purchased. It is such examples as this that give dignity to New
England rural life, give us a sense of not being offensively new. In
my genealogical researches in England I have not found such cases
nearly as common as in New England. Surprise and even
annoyance is shown in England at your expectation and hope to find
descendants of the original owners occupying farm-houses and
manors two hundred years old.
Had the weaving been the only portion of the work done in the
farm-house it would seem an important addition to the round of
domestic duties, but every step in the production of clothing was
done at home, as expressed by Miss Hazard of her great-
grandfather’s household in Narragansett: “From the shepherd who
dagged the sheep, the wool-comber who combed the wool, the
spinners who spun, the weavers who wove, all in regular order till the
travelling tailor made the clothes up, and Thomas Hazard went to
meeting in a suit made from wool of his own growing.” The “all-wool
goods, yard wide,” which we so glibly purchase to-day meant to the
Narragansett dame the work of months from the time the fleeces
were given to her deft fingers. After dag-locks, bands, feltings, tarred
locks, were skilfully cut out, the white locks were carefully tossed and
separated, and tied in net bags with tallies, to be dyed. The homely
saying, “dyed in the wool,” indicated a process of much skill. Indigo
furnished the blue shades, madder and logwood the red. Sassafras,
fustic, hickory, and oak bark furnished yellow and brown. It will be
noted that the old-time dyes were all vegetable. After the dyeing
mixed colors could be made by spreading in layers and carding them
over and over again. In carding wool, the cards should be kept warm
and the wool very slightly greased with rape-oil or “swines’-grease.”
At last the wool was carded into light rolls and was ready for the
wheel.
An old writer says, “The action of spinning must be learned by
practice, not by relation.” The grace and beauty of wool-spinning,
ever sung by the poets, need not be described. Stepping lightly
backward and forward, with arms at times high in the air, now low at
the side, often by the light only of the fire, the worker, no matter what
her age, seemed the perfection of the grace of motion; and the
beauty of the occupation makes the name of spinster (the only title
by law of every single woman) a title of honor and dignity.
The preparation of flax was infinitely more tedious and more
complicated. From the time the tender plant springs up, through
pulling, spreading, drying, rippling, stacking, rotting, cleaning,
braking, swingling, beetling, ruffling, hetchelling, spreading, and
drawing, there are in all over twenty dexterous manipulations till the
flax is ready for the wheel, the most skilful manipulation of all, and is
wrapped round the spindle. Flax thread was spun on the small flax-
wheel. “Lint on the wee wheel, woo’ on the muckle.” It was reeled
into skeins on a clock-reel, which ticked when the requisite number
had been wound, when the spinner stopped and tied the skein. A
quaint old ballad has the refrain:
“And he kissed Mistress Polly when the clock-reel ticked.”
These knots of linen thread had to be bleached before they were

woven. They were soaked in water for days, and constantly wrung
out; they were washed again and again in the brook; they were
“bucked” with ashes and hot water in a bucking-tub; they were
seethed, soaked, rinsed, dried, and wound on bobbins and quills for
the loom. In spite of all this bleaching, the linen web, when woven,
would not be white, and it afterward went through twoscore more
processes of bucking, possing, rinsing, drying, and grassing. In all,
forty bleaching manipulations were necessary for “light linens.” Thus,
at least, sixteen months had passed since the flax-seed had been
sown, during which the good-wife had not “eaten the bread of
idleness.”
With the passing of these old-time household arts of spinning and
weaving, went also the household independence. Well timed was
our struggle for freedom from British rule, when every man and wife
on their own farm held everything necessary for life and comfort—
food, shelter, fuel, illumination, clothing. What need had he or she to
fear any king? It could not be such an independent revolt to-day; in
the matter of clothing alone, no family could be independent of
outside assistance.
The old-time preparatory work of the weaver is much simplified for
this Narragansett weaver in modern times, by the use of machine-
spun threads and yarns. The warp of these bed coverlets is of strong
twine or thread, while the weft is of various woollen yarns or zephyrs
or crewels, bought at mills. These latter are aniline-dyed, and in no
artistic sense equal the old indigo, hickory, sassafras, or madder
home-dyed wools of yore. These skeins of yarn are prepared for use
by spreading them on a reel or swifts, and winding the yarn off on
quills in a quilling-wheel, which is somewhat like a simplified
spinning-wheel.
Besides these weavers who worked in their own homes, making
their own wool into cloth to sell, or weaving the thread and yarn
brought to them by their neighbors, there was a distinct class of
travelling weavers, who went from house to house working for a few
shillings a day and their “keep.” They often were quaint and curious
characters; frequently what were known as “natural preachers;” that
is, either mystic or fanatic souls who tried to supplement or
supersede the religious teaching of the community by itinerant
preaching. Such teachers and preachers have ever flourished in
Narragansett since the day of Samuel Gorton and his associates.
One of these weaver-preachers, undismayed by the indifference
and even the disapproval of his neighbors, built a rude log pulpit in
the woods near his home and there communed aloud with God if not
with man. The sound of his fervid prayers and invocations could be
heard afar off by passers-by in the wood-lanes and roads, even in
mid-winter; while the emphasizing thumps of his sturdy fist kept his
blood as warm as his religion and startled the Narragansett squirrels
and chipmunks who thriftily used the recesses of the weaver’s pulpit
as a storage-place for nuts and acorns. There were few women
weavers among them, especially for linen-weaving, which was hard
work. Occasionally some sturdy woman, of masculine muscle and
endurance, was a weaver.
One of these Narragansett women-weavers was a witch. She
would sit for hours bending over her loom, silent, peering into it and
not doing a single row. This angered the dames for whom she
worked, but they said nothing, lest they get her ill-will. Suddenly she
would sit up and start her treadle; bang! bang! would go her batten
as fast as corn in a corn-popper; and at night, after she had gone
home, when her piece was still set in the loom, the family would
waken and hear the half-toned clapping of the loom, which someone
was running softly to help the witch out in her stint, probably the old
black man. So, behold! at the end of the week more cloth appeared
on the cloth-beam, more linen was ready for bleaching, and more
rolls of carpet were woven than could be turned out by any man-
weaver in the province. So whether it was hitching up with the devil
or not, she always had employment in plenty; and her fine linen
table-cloths were in every bridal outfit, and her linen web used in
many a shroud throughout Narragansett.
She never ate with the family of her employer as did every other
worker in house or on farm, nor was it evident that she brought food
with her. The minister suspected she ate nocake, which she could
easily hide in her pockets. She never asked for water, nor cider, nor
switchel, nor kill-devil, nor had anyone ever seen her drink. Debby
Nichols once saw a bumble-bee fly buzz-buzz out of her mouth as
she wove in the minister’s loom-loft. But the minister said it was only
a hornet flying past her—the garret was full of them. But, sure
enough, at that very hour Joe Spink fell from his horse on the old
Pequot trail from Wickford and broke his leg. Joe said a big bumble-
bee stung the horse on the nose and made him rear and plunge. Joe
had had high words with the witch over some metheglin he had tried
to buy from her the previous week, for she brewed as well as she
wove. The minister said that if metheglin had been the only drink Joe
ever bought he wouldn’t have fallen from his horse, and that it wasn’t
the first bee Joe had had in his bonnet.
One day some careless darkies in a kitchen set on fire a hank of
tow that was being hetchelled by the chimney-side. The sudden
blaze extended to a row of freshly ironed sheets, then to a wool-
wheel, and soon a dense smoke and darting flames filled the room.
All ran out of the house, some for water, some for buckets, some for
help, and no one thought of the witch in the loom-loft. The bang and
rattle of her work made her ignorant of the noise and commotion
below, and as the smoke entered the loft she thought, “But that
chimney do smoke!” Finally a conviction of danger came to her and
she made her way down the loft-ladder and through the entry with
difficulty to the open air.
“Where’s the cat?” was her abrupt greeting to the shamefaced folk
who began to apologize spasmodically for their neglect to alarm her.
“I saw her an hour ago on the spare bed in the fore room”—and back
into the house rushed the witch, to return in a few moments with
Tabby safely in her arms. This act of course deserved scant praise.
Everyone murmured that there was probably some good reason for
doing it, that everyone knew witches and cats had close relations,
that the house didn’t burn down anyway, and probably she knew it
wasn’t going to.
One night a neighbor met her, breathing heavily, her hand at her
side, hobbling haltingly homeward. He told his wife he guessed the
witch was pretty sick. She told the minister’s wife that the witch was
getting her deserts. The latter in turn told her husband, and during a
ministerial visit the next day he discoursed profitably on the probable
illness and the unsanctified life of that misguided woman. The
minister sat long in the front room sipping sangaree, but the hard-
working little tailoress in the kitchen overheard his moralizing and his
story. And when goose and shears were laid aside, and her day’s
work was over, she hurried through the winter gloaming, across the
ice-crusts of three fields, to the witch’s door. No light shone from the
window, either of evil or domestic significance; but the tailoress
pulled the latch-string and pushed open the door, and by the light of
her hand-lantern found the witch in the chilled house cold and dead.
The following August a band of wondering, marauding boys, with
alternate hesitation and bravado, entered the tenantless house. The
windows had all been broken by missiles thrown by witch-hating
passers-by, and the spring rains and summer suns had freely
entered the room. And lo! the witches bed, on which she died—a
sack full of straw of mouse-barley, with occasional spikes of grain
attached—had sprouted and grown through the coarse hempen bed-
tick, and was as green and flourishing as the grass over her
unmarked grave.
WHERE THREE TOWNS MEET
In the heart of Narragansett three towns meet at a cross-roads;
they are North Kingston, South Kingston, and Exeter. It is a lonely
cross-roads, even in days of summer, though Weaver Rose’s
cheerful home is near it; but it is picturesque and beautiful in its
extended view, its overreach of splendid locust-trees, and the tangle
of wild flowers fringing the roadside and rioting along the stone walls.
There is no monument or stone, nothing to mark the special tradition
of this corner, as Squaw Rock at Indian Corner, half a mile farther on
the road, a sinister rock with dark, blood-red veins and splashes, a
rock whereon were dashed the brains of a Narragansett squaw by
her drunken brave of a husband.
This cross-roads, or “corner,” has been the scene many times of
episodes as uncivilized, if not as cruel, as the one that immortalized
Squaw Rock. Here—a spot chosen either through fancy, tradition, or
even rustic fashion, or because here three townships meet—have
taken place several of those absurd bequests of barbaric peoples
known as shift-marriages.
These ungallant and extremely inconvenient ceremonies are not
American inventions or Yankee notions, but an old English custom,
being in brief the marriage of a woman, usually a widow, clad only in
her shift, to avoid hampering her newly made husband with her old
debts. All through New England, in New York and Pennsylvania, this
custom was known until this century. In Narragansett it was
comparatively common. The exact form of the sacrifice (for sacrifice
it was of modesty to the new husband’s cupidity) and notions about it
varied in localities. Let me give a marriage-certificate of a shift-
marriage which took place on this very cross-roads where the three
towns meet:
“On March 11th, 1717, did Philip Shearman Take the
Widow Hannah Clarke in her Shift, without any other Apparel,
and led her across the Highway, as the Law directs in such
Cases and was then married according to law by me. William
Hall, Justice.”
It is not specified in this certificate that this grotesque proceeding
took place at night, but, out of some regard for decency, and to avoid
notoriety, such was usually the case.
There is an ancient registration book of births, deaths, and
marriages at the handsome new Town Hall at South Kingston, R. I.
There is an entry within it of a shift-marriage:
“Thomas Calverwell was joyned in marriage to Abigail
Calverwell his wife the 22. February, 1719-20. He took her in
marriage after she had gone four times across the highway in
only her shift and hair-lace and no other clothing. Joyned
together in marriage by me.
“George Hazard, Justice.”
This was but two years after the marriage of Widow Clarke, and
the public parade may have taken place on the same spot, but there
is a slight variation, in that the fair Abigail’s ordeal was prolonged to
four times crossing the road. The naming of the hair-lace seems
trivial and superfluous with such other complete disrobing, but it was
more significant than may appear to a careless reader. At that date
women wore caps even in early girlhood, and were never seen in
public without them. To be capless indicated complete dishabille. A
court record still exists wherein is an entry of a great insult offered to
the town constables by an angry and contemptuous woman. She
threatened to pull off her head-gear and go before them, “only in her
hair-lace and hair, like a parcel of pitiful, beggarly curs that they
were.” So the abandon of only a hair-lace comported well with
Abigail Calverwell’s only a shift.
Hopkinton is another Narragansett town, in the same county. In
1780 David Lewis married at Hopkinton, Widow Jemima Hill, “where
four roads meet,” at midnight, she being dressed only in her shift.
This was to avoid payment of Husband Hill’s debts. Ten years later,
in a neighboring town, Richmond, still in the South County, Widow
Sarah Collins appeared in the twilight in a long shift, a special
wedding-shift covering her to her feet, and was then and thus
married to Thomas Kenyon.
Westerly, still in the same Narragansett county, had the same
custom and the same belief.
“To all People whom It May Concern. This Certifies that
Nathanell Bundy of Westerly took ye Widdow Mary Parmenter
of sd town on ye highway with no other clothing but shifting or
smock on ye Evening of ye 20 day of Aprill, 1724, and was
joined together in that honorable Estate of matrimony in ye
presence of
John Sanders, Justice.
“John Corey.
“George Corey.
“Mary Hill.
“Peter Crandall.
“Mary Crandall.”
The use of the word smock here recalls the fact that in England
these marriages were always called smock-marriages.
The Swedish traveller, Kalm, writing in 1748, tells of one
Pennsylvania bridegroom who saved appearances by meeting the
scantily clad widow half-way from her house to his own, and
announcing formally that the wedding-garments which he thereupon
presented to her were not given to her but were only lent to her for
this occasion. This is much like the ancient custom of marriage
investiture, still in existence in Eastern Hindostan.
Another husband who thus formally lent wedding-garments to a
widow-bride was Major Moses Joy, who married Widow Hannah
Ward in Newfane, Vt., in 1789. The widow stood in her shift, within a
closet, and held out her hand through a diamond-shaped hole in the
door to the Major, who had gallantly deposited the garments for
Madam to don before appearing as a bride. In Vermont many similar
marriages are recorded, the bride not being required to cross the
highway. One of these unclad brides left the room by a window, and
dressed on the upper rounds of a ladder, a somewhat difficult feat
even for a “lightning-change artist.” In Maine the custom also
prevailed. One half-frozen bride, on a winter’s night in February, was
saved for a long and happy life by having the pitying minister, who
was about to marry her, throw a coat over her as she stood in her
shift on the king’s highway. In early New York, in Holland, in ancient
Rhynland, this avoidance of debt-paying was accomplished in less
annoying fashion by a widow’s appearing in borrowed clothing at her
husband’s funeral, or laying a straw or key on the coffin and kicking it
off.
The traveller, Gustavus Vasa, records a shift marriage which he
saw in New York in 1784. A woman, clad only in her shift, appeared
at the gallows just as an execution was about to take place,
demanded the life of the criminal, and was then and there married to
him. It is well known that in England criminals sentenced to death
(usually for political offences) were rescued from the gallows by the
appearance at the time and place of execution of women who
claimed the right of marrying them, and thus saving their lives.
It has been asserted that these shift-marriages were but an
ignorant folk-custom, and that there never was any law or reason for
the belief that the observance procured immunity from payment of
past debts. But it is plainly stated in many of these Narragansett
certificates that it was “according to the law in such cases.” The
marriages were certainly degrading in character, and were gone
through with only for the express purpose of debt evasion, and they
must have been successful. The chief actors in these Narragansett
comedies were, from scant negative testimony of their life and the
social position of their families, not necessarily of limited means. Any
man of wealth might not, however, wish to pay the debts of his
matrimonial “predecessor,” as the first husband is termed in one
case.
And it should be remembered also that at the time these weddings
took place there was nothing boorish in the community. Considering
the necessary differences in the centuries, the “South County” was
not nearly as “countrified,” to use a conventional term, then as now.
Exeter has ever been sparsely settled, with many woodlands,
meagre farms, and little wealth, though it had one church with a
thousand members; but North Kingston had a thrifty and enterprising
general population, with many men of wealth, and handsome
houses. South Kingston, the nearest town-centre to the cross-roads,
was settled by men of opulence and of polite culture. It was the
richest town in the State of Rhode Island, paying, as late as 1780,
double the taxes assigned to Newport and one-third more than
Providence. The cross-roads, where the three towns meet, was not
far from St. Paul’s Church, where the planters and their families
gathered each Sunday, riding to it over the very highway where the
shift-marriages took place.
As I sat on a fallen tree last summer at the lonely cross-roads, the
scene of so many of these shift-marriages, the place, with its fairly
tropical bloom, seemed a romantic spot for such a grotesquery; but
the picture of the last of these benumbed brides, who, early in this
century, clad only in a linen shift, on a February night—a New
England February night—shivered across the frozen road to avoid
the payment of some paltry debt, and the thought of the unspeakable
husband who would let her go through such a mortifying and
distressing ordeal, there seemed scant romance, and nothing but
ignorant and sordid superstition.
TUGGIE BANNOCKS’S MOONACK
Tuggie Bannocks, the Narragansett negress, decided to work a
charm on old Bosum Sidet, the negro tinker. She was not going to
charm him in the ordinary commonplace way, albeit pleasing, that
most dames follow—be they old or young, black or white—to allure
human beings of the opposite sex. Her charm was, alas, a malignant
one, a “conjure,” that she angrily decided to work upon him as a
revenge for his clumsy and needless destruction of her best copper
tea-kettle while he was attempting, or I suspect pretending, to repair
it. This charm was not a matter of a moment’s hasty decision and
careless action; it required some minute and varied preparation and
considerable skill to carry it out successfully, and work due and
desired evil.
Tuggie’s first step, literally, was to walk over the snowy fields, the
frozen roads, to Bosum’s house to obtain some twigs or sprigs of
withered grass that had grown and still lingered in his dooryard. Lest
Bosum’s wife should suspect any uncanny motive for her visit, she
carefully elaborated a plan, and carried on, in its furtherance, a long
conversation with regard to a certain coveted dye-stuff which Mother
Sidet manufactured; it turned all woollen stuffs a vivid green, and
was in much demand throughout Narragansett to dye old woollen
rags and worn-out flannel sheets and shirts this brilliant, verdant hue,
when they could thereafter be used to most astonishing and
satisfactory advantage in conferring variety in the manufacture of
those triumphs of decorative art, those outlets of rural color-sense,
home-made woven rag-carpets, and hooked and braided rugs.
Tuggie argued with much dignity and volubility that she should be
told the secret of this dye-stuff as some slight compensation for her
ruined tea-kettle. It is needless to state that she was unsuccessful,
nor had she expected to be otherwise. The secret of the dye was
Molly Sidet’s stock-in-trade, just as the soldering-iron and solder
were her husband’s.

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Navigating Place-Based Learning:

Mapping for a Better World 1st ed.

Elizabeth Langran · Janine DeWitt

ISBN 978-3-030-55672-3 ISBN 978-3-030-55673-0 (eBook)

Cover illustration: © Alex Linch/shutterstock.com

Yet, not “forward,” but backward in time, since to understand a place, we

dispossessed need, to understand the positioning of current events; and

• Ask Geographic questions

What follows is an articulation of a Critical Place-Based Inquiry Model

Cape Cod, USA Marsha Alibrandi

Common Ground: Our Love

add a spatial component to their assignments. Without realizing it, we

Arlington, USA Elizabeth Langran

Writing a book was as hard as I expected. If it weren’t for the encourage-

1 Place-Based Learning, Geospatial Literacy, and Maps 1

2 How and Why Placed-Based Learning Works 25

3 The Design of Critical Place-Based Inquiry 55

Chapter Conclusion: Designing for Success in Critical

4 Facilitating Student Learning 91

5 Place-Based Inquiry in Action 117

6 Conclusion: Mapping for a Better World 141

Fig. 1.1 Mobile mapping: gravesite of P.T. Barnum (Photo by

Table 1.1 Suitability for place-based learning 20

Place-Based Learning, Geospatial Literacy,

© The Author(s) 2020 1

Besselink designed this experiential activity to shift the students’ focus

When we blur the boundaries of a classroom and expand the locations

What Is Place-Based Learning?

• Develop stronger ties to their community;

By actively engaging local citizens, community organizations, and envi-

In Shatter the Glassy Stare (2008), Machonis devotes an entire section to

The Language of Place-Based Learning

Place is defined by meaning, and many diverse forms of place meaning —

Indeed, all of our life experiences “from cultural traditions to natural

• the elements of the social context, recognizing that historical and

Not only should place-based learning recognize these power structures,

• have the habit of mind of thinking spatially—they know where,

Here, we focus on a specific kind of spatial literacy, that of geospatial

Walking to school, taking a shortcut to avoid a traffic jam, playing a team

Together, spatial literacy provides us with the abilities needed to work

Who Is Involved in Creating Maps? Collaboration, Participation,

Mapping for Study Abroad

Mapping Cities, Suburbs, and Rural Areas

activities have an impact on the environment through pollution, energy

Fig. 1.1 Mobile mapping: gravesite of P.T. Barnum (Photo by E. Langran)

into instruction. Many people are already using location-aware applica-

How mobile learning bridges the gap between the classroom

• It has been successful to minimize educational disruption in conflict

Geocaching was an early location-based gaming activity, using hand-

The Role of Place in Your Classroom

1. The content is focused explicitly on the attributes of a place (e.g.,

Table 1.1 Suitability for place-based learning

Differing roles of place-based inquiry Sample investigations

Inquiries best only undertaken when anchored in Impact of climate change:

These characteristics help us differentiate between the type of topics

Chapter Conclusion: The Case

Crampton, J. W. (2001). Maps as social constructions: Power, communication

Kerski, J. (Producer). (2019, July 1). Thinking spatially [Audio podcast].

How and Why Placed-Based Learning Works

Educators can draw upon several bodies of literature to uncover how

© The Author(s) 2020 25

direct experience with a geospatial representation. Our brains learn better

The Human Brain: Designed to Learn “On the Go”