Project Pathways Library

Cognitive and Affective Outcomes of a Southwest Place-based Approach to Teaching Introductory Geoscience

Abstract

The physical and cultural landscapes of the Southwest United States epitomize places, which are localities imbued with meaning by human
experience. Sense of place comprises the meanings of and emotional attachments to places held by individuals or groups, and thus bridges
cognition and affect. Place-based teaching deliberately engages and leverages the sense of place of students and instructor with experiential, cross-cultural, interdisciplinary content and methods that may better engage underrepresented students with rich culturally-rooted senses of place, such as American Indians and Mexican Americans in the Southwest. We propose that psychometric measurement of the cognitive
and affective components of sense of place, place meaning and place attachment, can be used to test the effectiveness of place-based teaching.