Community of Practice

Ecological Place-Based Education For All

Illustration showing different learning environments — Artwork by Sofia Jain-Schlaepfer

Facilitators: Dr. Lee Beavington and KPU Wild Spaces

Ready to take your teaching and learning outdoors?

Curious about place-based education?

Wondering how your work at KPU (or elsewhere, university or otherwise) could fit into this practice?

Join our Community of Practice, open to everyone. Learn how to facilitate ecological place-based education remotely. Cultivate clear intentions and a reciprocity lens to learning on and with the land. Explore place-based learning ideas at multiple campuses, including Richmond (KPU Farm), Langley (Logan Creek) and Surrey (Westerman property and nearby Cougar Creek).

Open to folks at from any discipline. If you’re connected to chemistry or creative writing, counselling or career services, the learning centres or the learning commons, you are most welcome. Also open to folks who are not affiliated with academia, or who are unfamiliar with place-based learning. Join a team of passionate educators and students for this experiential, learner-centered Community of Practice.

Note: a Community of Practice is a gathering of people with a common purpose who share and co-create best practices on a particular topic. More details here.

Meeting Dates

Six sessions, starting with synchronous online and moving to entirely outdoors by the third session.

Online (Zoom) – Jun. 1, 12-1:30PM
Agreements/guidelines for our Community of Practice. What is PBE? How can it be done remotely?
Hybrid (Online & in-person @ KPU Surrey, Fir 136) – Jul. 13, 12-1:30PM
Truth and intentionality. What are we bringing to PBE? How can it connect to our own disciplines and/or practices?
Outdoors at KPU Surrey – Aug. 3, 12-2PM
Learning on, from and with the land. Nature as co-teacher and reciprocity.
KPU Farm – Sep. 14, 12-2PM
Ecological PBE at the KPU Farm (KPU Richmond), with Sustainable Agriculture
Logan Creek – DATE CHANGE TO WED, Sep. 27, 12-2PM
Ecological PBE at Logan Creek (KPU Langley), with EPT/Horticulture
Cougar Creek Park – Oct. 12, 12-2PM
Ecological PBE at Cougar Creek (near KPU Surrey), with guest Deb Jones from Cougar Creek Streamkeepers. Closing sharing.

How to join this group

If you are interested in joining, please email lee.beavington@kpu.ca. Open to everyone.

Map made by KPU alumni and student researcher Rick Feng, showing the walking route from KPU Surrey to Cougar Creek Park.

Quotes to ponder…

“What happened here? What is happening here now? What should happen here? How to be here?” ~David Greenwood (inspired by Aldo Leopold)

“How can I invite the natural world to be present as a co-teacher in my practice?” ~Wild Pedagogies

“In what ways can I notice and respond to human-centred and colonizing perspectives that we might encounter today?” ~Wild Pedagogies

“Much that is done under the guise of education does not involve learning.” ~Laura Joplin

“Experiential education is based on the assumption that all knowing must begin with the individual’s relationship to the topic.” ~Laura Joplin

“…too much safety seems to yield only danger in the long run.” ~Aldo Leopold

“What would it be like to be raised on gratitude, to speak to the natural world as a member of the democracy of species, to raise a pledge of interdependence?” ~Robin Wall Kimmerer

More quotes to ponder…

“I had forgotten how [birds] could show me things, not just about this place, but about how you might carry yourself, what might become of you, when you know this place well” and “…how to carry oneself in such a way that the ways of this place might show themselves.” ~David Jardine

“What educational forms promote care for places?” -Greenwood & Smith

“Is there room for the unknown, spontaneous, and unexpected to appear and be taken seriously in our educational work?” ~Wild Pedagogies

“Can I leave enough space in my teaching to allow my students and myself to engage with natural places and with beings that are nearby?” ~Wild Pedagogies

“Where are my habitual ways of doing things still limiting possibilities?” ~Wild Pedagogies

“What might I do that would bring the natural world more explicitly into community decision-making?” ~Wild Pedagogies