Drawing Insights about Place

Through content and pedagogy, place-based education seeks to encourage “real-world” curricular connections and in doing so, foster a deeper appreciation of community and individual wellbeing. Our chapter suggests that a shift away from curricular approaches toward spatial representations may reveal novel insights into how people develop an understanding of the environment as a place with numerous local-global connections. A total of 46 drawings of the environment were gathered from high school students at a public charter school in the West Hawai‘i school district. Upon visual and spatial analysis of the drawings, two primary themes emerged: stereotyped places and making sense of global issues locally. These findings demonstrate that knowledge is shaped by social (e.g., teaching) and spatial (e.g., location/locale) processes. They also draw attention to the spatiality of people-place relationships, and the need to understand global issues in local contexts if we are to solve complex environmental problems.