Importance and Educational Possibilities of the Place-Based Education Through Virtual Fieldtrips

Introduction

People occupy a certain range of territory and live in a place as a part of nature and society within the territory. Therefore, the natural and social environments of the place are important factors that constitute human life. But people often don’t connect directly to the communities and places where they live now. So people need to think about life in a place and be interested. Place-based education accounts for the social and ecological aspects of the community and place where people live and also takes into consideration the diversity of their experiences in the community and place. Because of this, place-based education has provided valuable insights for geography educators and has been widely implemented in geography education.

This chapter explains how to help students develop strong ties to their community and place, increase students’ understanding of the importance of the community and place, and get students to be active citizens on social and environmental issues through place-based education.

This chapter introduces my experience and opinions on conducting place-based education that I have gained through this experience. Every semester, I teach first-year college students a liberal arts course called “Exploring the region.” This course aims to help students understand the diversity and scale of the region, identify the dynamics of regional change, develop a sense of place and spatial thinking, and take an interest in local issues. Students taking this course are pre-service teachers of elementary schools.

This course starts with students acquiring geographic information about the region where their university is located. Then, students compare this with the geographic information of their hometown. This activity aims to help students understand their hometowns better and enhance their perspective on the geographical environment of the region by comparing two regions. Through this activity, students can get a sense of security in their lives by obtaining useful geographic information about the place they currently live.

In the course, students conduct discussions, investigations, research projects, and two field trips. The themes of the two field trips are local history and local environmental issues. Students conduct field trips at local parks not far from the university. The field trip on the local history theme is conducted at the park in the city center with a long history. The field trip on the local environmental issues is held at the Wonheungi Ecological Park. This chapter will focus on the field trip to the Wonheungi Ecological Park that explores local environmental issues.

Wonheungi Ecological Park was created according to the urban development plan to expand the residential area of the city. “Wonheungi” is derived from a historical place name and is also known as a “Toad Ecological Park.” Before being developed as a residential area, the park was a habitat for toads and other amphibians. The amphibian habitat was once threatened with destruction by development plans that did not prioritize the conservation of animal habitats. However, human settlements and toad habitats have been able to coexist due to citizens’ relentless efforts to conserve the amphibian habitat. Therefore, the Wonheungi Ecological Park, which contains the history of development and environmental conservation, is suitable for students to explore local environmental issues. This chapter also introduces the knowledge, feelings, and experiences students acquire by visiting this ecological park.

An outdoor field trip is the best education method for students to understand a particular place because they can learn about the place and experience a sense of place during the field trip. Virtual field trips substituted outdoor field trips when outdoor field trips were not possible. Based on the experience of using this virtual field trip, this chapter examines the elements of virtual field trips dealing with the themes related to a place. This chapter also suggests useful methods to use video content for the success of virtual field trips in place-based education. In conclusion, this chapter summarizes the strategies of blended learning, methods, and considerations for environmental education using virtual field trips as a method of place-based environmental education.