Discovering PLACE is a collective of Flint-area K-12 schools, UM-Flint faculty and staff, community organizations, and parents, with the shared goals of increasing student learning, benefitting the community and local environment, connecting students with their surroundings and, ultimately, building stewardship among the students involved. They help connect young adults to place by offering sustained teacher professional development, facilitating school-community partnership building, and providing resources and support to implement place-based education activities with youth. Discovering PLACE focuses primarily on addressing the urban environmental and community development needs of the Flint Area, as well as making the connections between urban life and the Great Lakes relevant for urban youth. In the coming year Discovering PLACE and this Masters Project Team will work with the Beecher 9th Grade Academy/ Beecher High School, a Flint public school, on a place-based food justice and urban agriculture project and a corresponding education for sustainability curriculum. The project is designed to engage the school community in an ongoing dialogue about food and environmental justice that will support students’ academic and social skill development. Discovering PLACE and Beecher Academy are in need of assistance in researching, developing, implementing, and evaluating a place-based education for sustainability curriculum series for high school students, planning and constructing an outdoor classroom and greenhouse on the school grounds, and organizing a series of teacher workshops about place- and inquiry-based learning.
