Synergizing standards-based and place-based science education

The research-based, Thailand-based learning progression for haze pollution developed by Ladachart, Poothawee and Ladachart opens a new front in the long-running debate over the compatibility of place-based education (PBE) with educational standards. This debate encompasses disagreement over whether PBE and standards are philosophically compatible and substantive cases have been made for both sides. However, with their place-based learning progression, Ladachart, Poothawee and Ladachart have demonstrated that research-based learning progressions, which by design (but as of yet incompletely) underpin widely used standards such as the Next Generation Science Standards, can be formulated in the context of place-based learning and applied to the development of place-based curriculum, instruction and assessment; and can be used to inform future supplements and revisions of standards now in effect. In the meantime, the method of “bundling” offers a way to synergize standards-based and place-based education for current instructional practice, as illustrated by examples of “bundling standards in place” for Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona, and the northern karst belt of Puerto Rico.