| Abstract: | Where you live should have something to do with what you teach. In the Arctic, the idea of place-based education – teaching
and sharing knowledge that is needed to live well – is central to the UARCTIC consortium and the 4th International Polar Year educational reform effort. A place-based issue oriented context can engage students in chemistry
concepts when it intersects with their experience and lives. This article examines the rationale and means of integrating
local concerns such as world view, culture, traditional knowledge, and policy into both general and specialized chemistry
courses. More broadly, capacious placebased issues should be widely adapted by all curriculum reform efforts to demonstrate
the connectivity between science and societal understanding of technological options. A case in point is the inclusion of
indigenous perspectives in a non-majors general chemistry course when the concepts of scientific method, ice and water resources,
genetic engineering, and so forth are discussed. In a specialized course on radioactivity in the north, topics connected nuclear
chemistry and radioactivity to people and energy. The local landscape should be central to science courses and involve issues
relevant to stewardship, a component of the indigenous world view. The historical issues can be connected to current nuclear
energy and uranium mining as they relate to the risks and benefits for the local community. This article will make the case
that curriculum reform that focuses on real-world topics will not only engage students so that they perform well in class
but also spark their interest so that they continue learning after the course is over. |
