Earth Day Creations: Learnings From Children's Arts- and Place-Based Meaning-Making With Materials

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Sunday 8:00 am Four Seasons Ballroom 1
  In Roundtable Session: Place, Memory, and Identity: Exploring Students' Ways of Knowing (Table 10)

Abstract

This study explores how teachers can use arts- and place-based approaches to foster children's meaningful engagement with the natural world and a commitment to the Earth, while honouring classroom diversity. We examined two activities - "Dear Earth" letters using loose parts and a Land Art project—in a K/1 classroom in Western Canada. Findings centre on children as art producers and consumers, arts-based approaches encouraging collective responsibility, relational processes valuing collaborative exploration, and the activities supporting diverse communicative repertoires. The study contributes to research on how working with materials can promote collaborative place-based learning and literacies, while advocating for the role of the arts and place in nurturing ecological and social responsibility, collective meaning-making, and decolonial practices.

Authors

• Giovanna Lucci, University of British Columbia

• Harini Rajagopal, University of British Columbia

• Kristiina Kumpulainen, University of British Columbia

• Maureen Kendrick, University of British Columbia