Spring into Land & Place-based learning by Lyn Baldwin

The workshop will take place inside and outside.
Space is limited, register now.

This workshop invites participants to explore 1) how academic disciplines shape our understanding of place and land and 2) the challenges and opportunities that land and place-based assignments could provide in our own courses. Beginning with a brief survey of place-based approaches in post-secondary education, we will use reflective-writing and reciprocal interviews to identify our own disciplinary ways of thinking. We will then work together to identify the disciplinary knowledge embedded in the natural and built environments of Capilano University. Heading outside, exercises grounded in the close observation of an awakening ecosystem will help us articulate the reciprocal relationships that always exist between human institutions and the more-than-human world. To conclude, we will identify challenges of student learning in our individual courses and seek to identify how collaborations within land and place might address these challenges. Overall, this workshop is offered from the belief that as Canada attempts to reconcile its own complicated history, stories of place—shared or contested—may be an important path to common ground.