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Cultural Studies of Science Education

, Volume 12, Issue 3, pp 555–564 | Cite as

Teaching students in place: the languages of third space learning

  • Cynthia M. Morawski
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Abstract

With a perceptive eye cast on geoscience pedagogy for students labeled as disabled, Martinez-Álvarez makes important contributions to the existing conversation on placed-based learning. It is in our local backyards, from the corner basketball court, to the mud bank of a city lake, to the adjacent field where rocky outcrops spill down to a forgotten farmer’s field, that we find rich working material for connecting self and community, moving students’ out-of-school experiences that feature their cultural and linguistic knowledge, from misconceptions to “alternative conceptions.” Informed by her insights regarding the learning of students whose literacy does not match conventional classroom practice, geoscience learning in the place of third space can act as a model of meaning making across the entire curriculum. In the pages that follow, I transact, both aesthetically and efferently, with Martinez-Álvarez’s text as she presents her research on special ways of learning in placed-based geoscience explorations with bilingual children experiencing disabilities.

Keywords

Place-based learning Learning disabilities Literacy 
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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Faculty of EducationUniversity of OttawaOttawaCanada

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