finding a place for technology: place-based education and scientific literacy

Running head: FINDING A PLACE FOR TECHNOLOGY 1

Finding a Place for Technology:

Place-based Education and Science Literacy

Lisa Hupp

Western Oregon University

FINDING A PLACE FOR TECHNOLOGY

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Introduction

In an era of globalization and digital innovation that breaks down spatial and temporal

boundaries, an emphasis on education grounded in local places may seem counter-intuitive. Yet

place-based education is a growing trend in research and literature, especially among those who

argue that leveraging students’ sense of place leads to greater engagement and achievement in

scientific disciplines (Semken & Freeman, 2008; Squire & Jan, 2007; Coulter, Lawlor, &

Garden, 2011). Recent attention to declining American student participation in science,

technology, engineering, and math (STEM) higher education in combination with an increase in

demand for qualified employees in STEM fields suggests that scientific and technological

literacy is a growing concern (Yoon, Elinich, Wang, Steinmeier, & Tucker, 2012). However,

national standards such as the No Child Left Behind Act have decreased opportunities for in-

school science instruction (pp. 519-20). Place-based education offers potential for formal and

informal science learning that transcends the walls of the classroom and increases student

engagement. Technology can facilitate and enhance place-based education and can also provide

students with professional technological skills. However, the integration of technology in place-

based education has only recently received research attention, mostly in the form of mobile

augmented reality (AR). In an effort to assess the potential for technology enhanced place-based

learning, I examine the methodology of place-based learning, discuss some of the philosophical

tensions and research gaps in the integration of technology with place-based science education,

and review the efficacy and best practices in recent case studies of mobile augmented reality

pedagogy that leverage place and place-based pedagogy.


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Sense of Place

The concept of place emerges from the philosophical traditions of Husserl, Heidegger,

Merleau-Ponty and the phenomenology of perception, emphasizing the dialectic of embodied

experience in physical environments (Abram, 1996; Cilesiz, 2011; Payne, 2006). As such, place

is a social construct that develops meaning from cultural, historical (both human and ecological),

and social interactions within specific locations, and varies from individual to individual and

between groups (Gruenewald, 2003; Lim & Barton, 2006; Semken, 2005; Semken & Freeman,

2008). A variety of academic disciplines have incorporated the concept of place into research in

recent decades, notably with Yi-Fu Tuan’s work in humanistic geography in the 1970’s and

expanding into other fields including environmental psychology, urban planning and

architecture, literary theory, and education (Abram, 1996; Lim & Barton, 2006).

A “sense of place” may describe a deeply rooted, long-term experience and observation

of a particular county, such as displayed in the writings of ecologist Aldo Leopold (Knapp, 2005)

or in the centuries-old traditional knowledge of the Yupi’k worldview (Takano, Higgins, &

McLaughlin, 2009). Children can develop a vivid sense of place in relation to their own

backyard or neighborhood (Lim & Barton, 2006), hometown or watershed (Smith, 2002). In the

industrialized post-colonial, post-modern era, people may experience places as contested or as

disconnected, or as sources of environmental and social injustice (Gruenewald, 2003). Steven

Semken (2005) describes a sense of place as a “set of meanings of and attachments to places that

are held by individual or by groups” (p. 149). Semken and Butler (2008) further elaborate that

place attachment is an emotional bond formed through interaction – either direct experience or

“vicarious engagement” with a place, while place meaning derives from cognitive and

intellectual connections with a place (pp. 1047-9).


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Pedagogical Tradition

Place as a pedagogical framework is not a new concept (Knapp, 2005; Smith, 2002;

Takano et al., 2009), but the educational field of “place-based education” appears within just the

past two decades (Knapp, 2005). Many authors discuss the experiential approach of John Dewey

as a modern foundation for integrating concepts of place as a core of curriculum theory and

practice (Knapp, 2005; Lim & Barton, 2006; Payne, 2006; Smith, 2002). Smith (2002) refers to

Dewey’s Chicago Lab School and his efforts to break down the isolation of school classrooms

and unite children’s education with direct involvement in the world. For Smith, classrooms

mediate students’ experience of the world in a way that is “qualitatively different” from life

outside of school (p. 586). Lim and Barton (2006) note that Dewey emphasized the holistic

importance of children’s experience and cite his critique that schools tend to ignore the wealth of

meaning that children access in their day to day lives. They continue with the observation that

the mainstream educational paradigm has not changed much since Dewey’s assessment a century

ago (p. 110).

Situated learning theory is a more contemporary pedagogical philosophy that draws from

the work of Dewey and Vygotsky (Pugh & Girod, 2007) and posits that learning is contextual

and develops through social and environmental interaction; therefore, learning is optimized

among an extended community of learners that leverages authentic situations for practice and

collaboration (Brown, 1994; Semken, 2005). Semken (2005) identifies place-based teaching as a

method rooted in situated learning theory, along with other contextual methods such as problem-

based or case-based teaching (p. 151). Similarly, Smith (2002) identifies the influence of

constructivism as a key element in place-based teaching when he advocates for students to


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develop their own meanings and knowledge from learning experiences while teachers act as

guides and co-learners (p. 593).

Characteristics of Place-based Education

The forms of place-based education vary, and Gruenewald (2008) notes this fluidity

when he charges, “place-based education, in its diverse incarnations, is currently less a pedagogy

per se and more an alternative methodology that lacks a coherent theoretical framework” (p.

317). Gruenewald finds that experiential learning and constructivism heavily influence the

pedagogical roots of place-based curriculum. He lists a wide variety of similar approaches that

emphasize context and situated learning within specific places, including outdoor and

environmental education, multi-cultural education, bioregional education, and community-based

education (p. 309). Knapp (2005) finds that the term “place-based education” appears in the

research literature as a fairly new label, and as both synonym to and replacement for the above

terms (p. 278). A close, and sometimes interchangeable, relationship with environmental and

outdoor education reflects the importance of the natural, physical environment in this approach

and may suggest a primarily non-formal, rural application. However, place-based education is a

viable approach for both urban and rural, formal and non-formal settings (Gruenewald, 2003;

Lim & Barton, 2006; Smith, 2002).

By definition, the practice of place-based education is highly contextual and may be

adapted in a variety of ways. G. A. Smith (2002) reviews the literature on place-based education

and summarizes five common themes. He first overviews two areas of study common to place-

based education: culture studies and nature studies, in which students investigate local

phenomena concerning their community’s cultural and natural history, especially as it may relate


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to their own lives and families (pp. 587-8). He then identifies three different approaches to

breaking down distinctions between the classroom and community: real-world problem solving

grounded in local issues, internships and entrepreneurial opportunities to engage with local

business and economy, and participation in local government and planning decisions (pp. 589-

93). Smith’s themes highlight the social construct of place, in which meanings form through

complex interactions of culture and nature within specific locations.

Despite the fluidity of the approach, many authors find a common set of characteristics of

place-based education. Local phenomena appear as a key criteria: as a way to frame disciplinary

concepts and curriculum devlopment (Knapp, 2005; Smith, 2002; Zimmerman & Land, 2014), as

a learning environment (Semken & Freeman, 2008), and as subject for student investigation

(Smith, 2002). Leveraging the individual sense of place of teachers and students can connect

abstract and complex concepts to personal experience, encourage student participation in

determining curriculum design, provide context and scaffolding, and invoke prior knowledge

(Gruenewald, 2003; Lim & Barton, 2006; Semken, 2005; Smith, 2002; Squire & Jan, 2007).

Though place-based learning need not always occur outdoors, there is a strong experiential

emphasis on extending the classroom beyond school walls, designing multisensory activities that

are situated in specific places, and connecting students with the local community – both social

and ecological (Gruenewald, 2003; Knapp, 2005; Lim & Barton, 2006; Martin, Dikkers, Squire,

& Gagnon, 2014; Semken, 2005; Smith, 2002; Zimmerman & Land, 2014). Place-based

education tends to be multi-disciplinary (Gruenewald, 2003; Semken & Freeman, 2008); many

of the articles reviewed for this paper focus on the advantages of a place-based approach for

science education (Coulter et al., 2011; Gruenewald, 2003; Lim & Barton, 2006; Payne, 2006;

Semken & Freeman, 2008; Takano et al., 2009). Finally, place-based education often


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incorporates some aspect of service- or community-based learning (Semken & Freeman, 2008);

Gruenewald (2003) cites the work of David Sobel and notes the potential of place-based

education to increase students’ empathetic and intellectual connections with place, leading to

involvement in efforts to improve their communities through political and environmental

activism.

Grounding place-based pedagogy in local contexts inherently presents an alternative

approach to standardized education (Gruenewald, 2003; Semken, 2005; Smith, 2002). For some,

this is a radical challenge to a status quo that has de-legitimized the diversity of student

experiences and de-emphasized the importance of human relationships with their local places

(Gruenewald, 2003; Lim & Barton, 2006). For others, place-based education provides a value-

added opportunity to enhance the outcome of general curriculum learning objectives (Coulter et

al., 2011). Proponents of place-based education argue that this alternative learning environment

can profoundly benefit students by improving motivation and engagement and creating

intellectual and emotional relevancy in their every day lives (Coulter et al., 2011; Martin et al.,

2014; Semken & Freeman, 2008; Smith, 2002). Semken (2008) reviews published studies

regarding the effectiveness of place-based education, and finds results of significant

improvements on standardized tests and achievement motivation. Smith (2002) likewise cites

several case studies of place-based curriculum that improved student achievement.

Science Education: Engagement Through Place

Coulter et al. (2011) argue that situating science learning in local project-based

curriculum provides an authenticity to scientific inquiry and a concrete, tangible portal to

abstract theories; they find this leads to increased student involvement in STEM courses. Lim


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and Barton (2006) posit that traditional science education tends to “silence” the importance of

place by teaching standardized concepts; they contend that sense of place affects how students

learn, and they investigate the role of place in an urban middle school science class. Their

results suggest that consciously leveraging sense of place creates opportunities for greater

connection and situates science learning within a context that is relevant to a broad range of

student experiences. Smith (2002) also evaluates traditional science curriculum as “detached

from the world, rather than part of it,” and asserts that this method alienates many students. As

an antidote, he offers two case studies of place-based science study that resulted in both higher

engagement and achievement across a diverse student population (pp. 588-9). Semken and

Freeman (2008) explore the application of place-based methods in an undergraduate geoscience

course and argue that increasing students’ place attachment and place meaning are appropriate

learning objectives for environmental sciences. They adapt psychometric assessment surveys to

measure course outcomes and find statistically significant gains in both components (p. 1053).

Gruenewald (2003) calls attention to the situational approach of place-based education

and argues for the assimilation of critical theory for a “critical pedagogy of place” that

challenges both social and environmental injustice through decolonization and reinhabitation (p.

318). He argues for transformation through place, incorporating marginalized voices and diverse

cultures. His framework has informed subsequent studies that seek to engage underrepresented

student populations in science education. Takano et al. (2009) studied the effects of place-based

outdoor “science of subsistence” curriculum implemented in a rural Alaskan Yupi’k high school

from 2002-7 and found an improved learning environment that yielded greater student

involvement, and a better relationship between the community, the school, students and teachers.

Semken (2005) likewise notes the characteristics of sense of place found in traditional ecological


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knowledge (TEK) of indigenous cultures, yet he finds that American Indians and Alaska Natives

are significantly underrepresented in geoscience advanced studies and careers. He thus proposes

implementation strategies for place-based geoscience education for better engaging diverse

student populations.

Place-based Education and Technology

As previously described, “place-based education” is a fairly new term, with the majority

of literature appearing in the early part of the 21st century. The discussion surrounding the

integration of digital technology in education is also relatively recent, and literature that

addresses the use of technology in place-based education appears as a slim intersection. Perhaps

this is partly due to a tension between the philosophical traditions of place and technology use:

phenomenology of place emphasizes direct experience of an environment, and the roots of place-

based education in environmental education draw from embodied encounters with the natural

world (Payne, 2006). Technology, however, fundamentally mediates our experiences (McLuhan,

1994), which may have major implications for an educational approach that accentuates the

importance of local and experiential learning. Cilesiz (2011) explores the phenomenology of

technology use in education and argues for the need to treat educational technology differently

than traditional educational practice: “experiences with technology generally, and with teaching

and learning with technology specifically, are phenomena distinct from experiences with

traditional forms of teaching and learning” (p. 488). Cilesiz reviews phenomenology as a

framework for studying this distinction and finds that very little literature exists on the topic, but

argues for the high potential for future research.


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In a large-scale survey that demonstrates some of the tension between technology and the

philosophical roots of place-based education, Peffer, Bodzin and Smith (2013) examine the

demographics, implementation, and perceptions surrounding the use of technology by non-

formal environmental educators. Reaching out to 3,000 potential participants, their final dataset

included 406 completed surveys represented the United States and several other countries. The

third section of the survey utilized a Likert scale for a series of questions querying participant

attitudes and perceptions: they found that while 87 percent believed that instructional

technologies can help students learn about their local environment, over 56 percent agreed that

technology use is detrimental in natural settings and 35 percent agreed that increased technology

use in environmental education programs would lead to decreased emotional connections with

the environment (pp. 27-29). While place-based education is not necessarily synonymous with

environmental education, it shares some characteristics, including the role that affective

connections with the environment plays in creating meaningful learning opportunities. This

survey, though exploratory, displays the ambivalence of mediating place experiences with

technology. Further research could utilize Cilesiz’s phenomenological framework for evaluating

experiences with technology from an environmental education or place-based education

approach to explore the differences between traditional methods and technology-mediated

experiential education.

The Argument for Technology Integration in Place-Based Science Education

Research over the past decade appears to support claims for the advantages of integrating

learning technologies in science education (Coulter et al., 2011; Peffer et al., 2013; Yoon, et al.,

2012). Peffer et al. (2013) summarize several studies that claim learning technologies can reduce


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the cognitive load of learning complex science concepts, promote problem-solving skills,

replicate advanced scientific thinking processes, and assist with visualization. They also find that

technology may provide mobility to a learning environment, enabling greater interaction with

places and field professionals (pp. 16-7). Houtsonen, Kankaanrinta, and Rehunen (2004) cite

arguments that geographical education has undergone a fundamental change since the integration

of instructional web use. They argue for the potential of the web in promoting constructivist

learning through greater learner engagment and independence (p. 166). The authors further

elaborate that internet use in geographical education can enable virtual fieldwork and connect

students with empirical representations of theoretical concepts. Finally, they argue that the web

may promote collaboration and communication among international communities and

incorporate educational games for more effective engagement (p. 167).

In a white paper report for the National Science Foundation Convening on Youth

Motivation and STEM Workforce Development Experiences, Coulter et al., (2011) argue for the

synthesis of place-based education and advanced learning technologies (p. 1). Their discussion

emerges from a 3-year study of technology-enhanced local learning projects designed to engage

students in STEM coursework, utilizing geospatial, AR, and agent-based modeling tools (p. 3).

Findings from the study include a broader range of student interest and participation and

increased opportunities for students to apply their skills in authentic situations (p. 4). In their

review of current mobile education technology literature, Zimmerman and Land (2014) posit that

place-based education may provide a framework for the challenge issued by the European

Technological Enhanced Learning community to consider context more holistically by engaging

with the computer, the physical location, and other device users within the physical location (p.

78).


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Most examples of the integration of technology in place-based science education appear

to focus on geospatial tools such as GPS, GIS and remote sensing, interactive models, kiosks and

websites, and AR, especially as a mobile feature on tablets and phones (Coulter et al., 2011; Liu,

Peng, Wu, & Lin, 2009; Martin et al., 2014; Peffer et al., 2013; Squire & Jan, 2007; Stevens &

Martell, 2003; Yoon et al., 2012; Zimmerman & Land, 2014). Many of these technologies lend

themselves well to situated learning and may be used within actual places, but some studies also

point to the potential of learning technologies to overcome constraints of time and location

(Yoon et al., 2012). Houtsonen et al. (2004) suggest that web-based tools can be an effective way

to connect learners with experiences of environments that are otherwise inaccessible, and

indicate the future potential of immersive virtual reality (p. 168). Likewise, Peffer et al., (2013)

suggest that the assistance of technology in place-based inquiry may be the only way for learners

limited by distance and resources to experience “otherwise inaccessible landscapes and

ecological phenomena” (p. 19). These claims present something of a contradiction for the

philosophical roots of place-based education, as discussed above, in their proposition that

technology can assist a learner in making an emotional and intellectual connection with a place

that they do not actually have the opportunity to experience. There appears to be little to no

research that studies the effective synthesis of distance learning and place-based education, but

multiple studies exist that examine the efficacy of mobile augmented-reality and place-based

education. The final section of this paper reviews some of these case studies for characteristics

and recommendations, with the prospect that they may provide some insight for future research.


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Augmented-reality and Place-Based Education

The Pew Research Center identifies mobile connectivity as one of the three major

technology revolutions occuring over their period of studying digital technology (Rainie, 2014).

Cell phones, smart phones and tablets have changed the ways in which people communicate and

get information, enabling access to just-in-time knowledge and nearly unlimited opportunities to

connect with others. Martin et al. (2014) argue that, although mobile devices are in widespread

use among teachers and students in American higher education, traditional academic practice has

not kept pace with their high potential for collaboration and informal learning opportunities (p.

40). Squire and Jan (2007) likewise caution that traditional, print-based education fails to meet

the needs 21st century students. They argue that pedagogy must shift to incorporate digital

literacy and adapt the new technologies with which students regularly engage outside of the

classroom. Squire and Jan further emphasize the importance of developing scientific literacy

through critical consumption of and interaction with complex digital media and multiple

representation forms (p. 6).

Squire and Jan (2007) formulate some of the earliest research investigating the potential

of place-based mobile AR gaming as an optimized instructional method for environmental

science: AR uses mobile technology to overlay real world locations, utilizing location awareness

features to blend digital information with local phenomena. The authors claim that this approach

leverages players’ emotional connections and scaffolds from their prior knowledge of local

places, while presenting a framework for complex, collaborative problem-solving that is

premised on authentic scientific inquiry. Liu et al. (2009) also promote mobile AR as a means to

enhance science learning through an immersive experience that supports outdoor inquiry and

hands-on activities with tablet computers. Their case study of 46 elementary students found an


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increase in student knowledge and understanding as well as positive percpetion and motivation

regarding the integration of mobile devices in the learning activity. Yoon et al. (2012)

investigated AR with school groups in an informal museum exhibit setting about electricity, and

found it to be an effective scaffold for independent student inquiry (p. 531). In another informal

setting, Zimmerman and Land (2014) integrated place-based education goals with mobile AR in

an arboretum to scaffold students’ prior experiences with local trees and provide a constructivist

learning opportunity for more advanced observation and discussion.

Principles of Place-based Augmented Reality in Science Education

The above studies all rely on a case-study method with small sample sizes and tend to

consider their research as exploratory; as such, their outcomes and designs do not provide a

prescpriptive approach to integrating AR technology with place-based education. However, they

do offer insight for design and implementation of technology-assisted science education that

leverages place as a core element of learning. Of central concern to several studies is the

application of constructivist and situated learning theories to advance critical scientific thinking

through authentic, inquiry-based opportunities that are participant-driven (Liu et al., 2009;

Martin et al., 2014; Squire & Jan, 2007; Yoon et al., 2012; Zimmerman & Land, 2014). The

following discussion expands common guidelines and traits encountered in place-based AR in

both formal and informal science education.

Martin et al. (2014) posit that place provides an authentic context for student learning and

that place-based AR engages multiple senses, enables peer-to-peer sharing, and supports user

content-creation that is relevant to the students’ local communities (p. 40). Zimmerman and Land

(2014) similarly advocate organizing disciplinary inquiry around key features of place, in order


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to make learning personally relevant to students and invoke common sources of prior knowledge

(p. 79). Squire and Jan (2007) include place as one of their five principles of AR games applied

to science education: they argue that using familiar places as organizing structure and context

provides significance (authenticity) and cognitive scaffolding, encouraging students “to apply

what they know (or are familiar with) about local environmental issues to the problem, as well as

challenges them to consider how abstract scientific concepts play out in their communities” (p.

24). All of these authors assume that students have some prior familiarity with the local

phenomena and place featured in the AR scenario; they do not address the potential issue that

their participants may be visitors from other locations with little background knowledge or

connection to the local community. Semken (2005) briefly addresses this issue in his discussion

of place-based geoscience learning in general, and argues that incorporating and “enriching a

local sense of place” can infuse interest among all students, just as tourists can develop a sense of

attachment to visited places (p. 154). A potential avenue for future research might investigate the

efficacy of AR to impart a sense of place in those with no prior familiarity or connection.

Squire and Jan (2007) suggest that an additional component of authenticity derives from

collaborative role-playing that mimics the process of professional scientific thinking. As students

inhabited the roles of game, they interacted with each other and with information on their mobile

devices to collect location aware data and form hypotheses in an immersive way that the authors

characterized as an “authentic inquiry experience” otherwise difficult to achieve in a classroom

setting (p. 25). Zimmerman and Land (2014) similarly advocate as a design guideline that

technology can provide “contextualized expert guidance to encourage deliberate comparison and

explanation” (p. 79). They propose that integrating photos and videos accessible in situ on a

mobile device can further develop insights to phenomena and provide cues for learners to link


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their experience of a place to professional disciplinary knowledge through comparisons, data

collection, and forming hypotheses. In combining web-support on a tablet with real-time

observations at an aquatic plant ecological pool, Taiwanese students reflected feelings of

accomplishment and the positive experience of a “treasure-hunt” as they navigated their own

inquiries (Liu et al., 2009, p. 353).

These studies also share a common perspective that mobile AR can provide real-time

visualization of local phenomena that may not otherwise be visible, can embed resources with

geospatial references, and can asssist students in capturing their own artifacts as a way to

contribute and annotate information. For example, in their AR app for school group visitation at

an arboretum, Zimmerman and Land (2014) provided video clips of insects that might be seen

only during particular seasons so that students could visualize pollination processes and they

encouraged participants to capture and annotate their own photographs of flowering plants in

order to process concepts about pollinating parts (pp. 80-81). Similarly, Liu et al. (2009)

provided location-specific enlargeable photographs and a photo glossary for parts of plants that

were not directly observable in an on-site ecological pool (p. 348). Squire and Jan (2007)

embedded resources such as maps and data to enable students to collect information based on

their geospatial location as they interacted with the narrative of the game; they used these multi-

modal representations to hypothesize various interactions of chemicals in the water cycle in their

local landscape in order to solve a mystery (p. 13).

Conclusion

Place, as a social construct of culture and nature, has great potential for enriching

pedagogy through context and authentic learning experiences, consistent with modern


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constructivist and situated learning theories. Place-based education utilizes local phenomena and

landscapes as a key component to curriculum development and implementation, and often

encourages students to become more involved in their local communities. As an ultimate goal,

place-based education may further develop the sense of place held by students and teachers and

empower a position of stewardship and sustainability. Rather than advocating for a parochial

perspective of the world, place-based education seeks to infuse learners with greater engagement

as they investigate their own experiences from a multi-disicplinary approach, creating a strong

foundation for engaging with both local and global issues in the 21st century (Coulter et al.,

2011).

As a means to increase student involvement in STEM education and careers, researchers

see potential for place-based education methods to reach a wider population of students,

especially those who may have strong traditional connections to place but are underrepresented

in advanced science and math. Increasing scientific literacy goes hand in hand with incorporating

current technologies so that students may be better prepared to critically understand and evaluate

modern representations of science (Squire and Jan, 2007). Traditional pedagogy has not kept up

with the now almost-ubiquitous use of mobile technology among both students and teachers as a

means of communication and information access. Utilizing mobile technology to create

augmented reality science instruction demonstrates a progressive method that has leveraged the

benefits of place-based education while enhancing digital literacy and adding pedagogical value.

Advocates argue that this approach to science learning engages a more diverse populations of

students, can increase motivation, allows for immersive hands-on activities that occur in

authentic situations, promotes participant-driven inquiry and knowledge construction, and

engages student experiences outside of the classroom through scaffolding from prior knowledge


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of a place. Tensions between the philosophical roots of place-based education and technology-

mediated experience are currently under-studied in the literature. Some proponents of integrating

technology in place-based education suggest that learning technologies may effectively connect

and provide meaningful learning experiences with places that are otherwise inaccessible, which

seems to present a possible contradiction. Future research might investigate the efficacy of place-

based education in an online/distance education format. Case studies of place-based mobile

augmented reality currently represent an exploratory trend with small sample sizes; however,

their research provides a preliminary foundation for best practices in technology-facilitated

place-based education.


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