Curriculum Design

Specialized Instruction
Price per student varies with number of students in the group

Whether you are a classroom teacher or a parent homeschooling your children, we can help you create or enhance your curriculum to engage students. Students can read and write and make art through compelling, real-world content that excites them. Any curriculum can be taught through a Place-based lens. Place-based education (PBE) immerses students in local heritage, culture, landscapes, opportunities, and experiences, using these as a foundation for the study of language arts, mathematics, social studies, science, and other subjects across the curriculum. PBE sometimes emphasizes learning through participation in service projects for the local school and/or community.

For us to develop a sense of our place, we need to engage in multiple ways of learning – including observation, experimentation, and opportunities to apply new knowledge (Orr, 1992). This approach allows us to access different sources of knowledge and then create local solutions for local issues, especially when we can rely on experts and elders in our own community, as well as information from the global community.

We promote a three-dimensional view of student achievement – mastery of knowledge and skills, character development, and high-quality work through a curriculum that is designed based on the research of developmental psychologists and educators such as Lev Vygotsky, Maria Montessori, and Jean Piaget.

Local Ecological Knowledges (LEKs) can be developed and cultivated in many ways, including:

• Integrating MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES: the perspectives, life experiences and cultures of others, as well as our own. Students will know, understand, value and draw from multiple perspectives to co-create with diverse stakeholders shared and evolving visions and actions in the service of a healthy and sustainable future locally and globally.
• Strengthening SENSE OF PLACE: the strong connection to the place in which one lives. Students will recognize and value the interrelationships between the social, economic, ecological, and architectural history of that place and contribute to its continuous health.

(These Enduring Understandings are from Cloud Institute for Sustainability Education)

Working together, we can design a package that dives into specific areas — where you need help most – whether it is aligning Common Core State Standards, creating field work, locating leveled reading materials, or guest speakers. We would like to answer your questions, relieve your stress, and put you and your students on the road to success.

Some PBE modules we have developed:

• Animals All Around Us
• Great Lakes Water Shed Studies
• Detroit River Sea Grant Field Work
• The Under Ground Railroad
• Photo Voice Community Project
• We can design a module with you!