A MODEL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY, GEOSCIENCE-RICH PLACE-BASED EDUCATION

Christchurch School (CCS) is a boarding and day school serving students in grades 9 through 12 and is located on the banks of the Rappahannock River in Middlesex County, Virginia. The school encourages and emphasizes place-based education. CCS specifically defines ‘place’ as the natural systems and human communities in an area and the connections between the two. Through meaningful field trips during the school year and on annual three-day-long Immersion Trips students explore local environmental and resource use issues. Each of these issues has a foundation in geoscience.

Geoscience concepts that students explore include: The concept of ‘watershed’ and the connection between land use and water quality; Chemical and biological indicators of water quality and human influence on both; Erosion and human efforts to control shoreline stability; The causes and effects of climate change; And local geologic history. The location of CCS within the Chesapeake Bay watershed allows the school easy access to environmental and resource use issues of national and international importance. Students discover a complex and dynamic world in which they play an important part.

A key part of the place-based curriculum at CCS is the Immersion Trips. On these trips students learn about a place by exploring waterways or hiking trails to understand the natural systems and by interviewing key stakeholders in local environmental and resource use issues. The scope of the Immersion Trips expands as students progress through grades 9 to 12 from the local area to the Rappahannock River watershed to the entire Chesapeake Bay watershed to national and international issues. Students also have the opportunity to use their place-investigating skills abroad on trips to India, Guatemala, Somalia, and China. It is the school’s expressed interest to prepare students with the skills needed to learn about a place anywhere in the world by exploring the connection between the natural systems and the human communities in the area.