Place Responsive Ventures and Storywork
Examples of activities for place-responsive teaching and learning, embodied inquiry, and in situ storywork.
Soundwalks
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Walking Curriculum
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Field Journals, Event Mapping, and Nature Journalling
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Landscape Inventories
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Community Inventories
- Inventories can take many forms and can be adapted for different ages and purposes. The design, medium, ways of categorizing, and amount of collaboration is all flexible
- A basic inventory makes use of:
- a map with notation/annotation (with the potential to morph into a report),
- relates to a defined space (e.g. a 1km radius from the school, a neighbourhood, a city, a region), and
- builds off of a purpose or responds to an inquiry or question.
- Examples of questions that can be answered with a community inventory:
- Where is the closest water to our school? tallest point? lowest point? biggest building? oldest business? newwest business?
- Where are the “best” trees to be found near our school (e.g. tallest, shadiest, most interesting bark, oldest-looking, damaged, lovely example of a particular species, etc.)
- What (and where) are some examples of climate resiliency in our community? Where are examples of climate stress? Where are sites with strong potential to shift from stress to resilience?
- How does my school relate to the community and the community relate to the school?
- What (and where) are some “social justice” hotspots in the community (e.g. sites that feature profound needs)? How do these places relate spatially to the services that can or do offer support for the identified needs?
- The inventory can be the basis of further inquiry, e.g. community interviews
- Related topics: community asset mapping (see images below), inquiry into cultural landscapes or historical environments
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Narrative Fossicking
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ArtStart
- This is a way of encountering and introducing oneself to a new space, or taking a fresh perspective on a place that is already known. It is also an example of aesthetic inquiry, something you can do with students of any age.
- Step One is to choose a feature of place to “encounter” – this could be a tree or shrub, a building or structure, a marker or sign, and so on.
- Participants can choose their own feature of place, or could draw one from a prepared list of possibilities
- Step Two is to draw or represent the feature using some kind of restraint... for example:
- style of drawing (e.g. pointillism, crosshatching, continuous line, etc.),
- perspective (insect POV, bird POV, multiple, e.g. 6 boxes each with a new view),
- physical constraints (backwards, upside down, wrong hand, short time)
- medium (could use mud as ink, could use loose parts and take a pic, etc.)
- Participants can choose their own restraint, or could draw one from a prepared list of possibilities. To make this activity accessible to all, the restraint could simply be to attempt a sketch that encourages participants to try their best to represent the feature of place in any way that strikes them as interesting, accurate, or imaginative.
- Debrief could involve a short “artist’s talk” where participants show their sketch, identify their feature and restraint, and anything else they would like to add about their experience of the activity.
- Supplies: sketch paper (any kind), sketching utensils (any kind).
PhotoStories
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RePhotography
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