Professional Development & Consulting
Place-Based Symposium
Where Place-based ideas come to life
Teton Science Schools’ annual Place-Based Symposium was originally designed to celebrate the place-based work happening across the organization, bringing together our faculty, staff, AmeriCorps, students, and regional community members to share and discuss best practices in local learning and global citizenship.
Since its establishment in 2016, the Place-Based Symposium has evolved into an annual event through which educators and thought leaders from around the world exchange place-based inspired ideas, learnings, and aspirations.
2025 Place-Based Education Symposium
We are excited to host the 2025 Place-Based Education Symposium in person with a focus on Local Science and Global Impact.
When & Where: Place-Based Education Symposium will be on Friday, April 25th from 4:00 – 8:00 pm at the Jackson Campus of Teton Science Schools. Lodging is available for out of town guests.
Plans: The Request for Presentation Proposals for 2025 is open! Please consider submitting a presentation proposal or a student project for the showcase. Proposals are due by Monday, March 3, 2025 at 4 pm.
Consider presenting at the Symposium
Symposium Themes and Questions to Consider: The 2025 Symposium themes and associated questions can be addressed in any of the presentation formats. We encourage our presenters to consider: why does this matter? How could attendees learn from and replicate or adapt in the future?
Symposium Theme: Your Local Science & Global Impact
Guiding Questions to consider:
- Exploring economies of place
- How might we bring more economic aspects of place into field teaching?
- What are our best successes integrating the economy leg of the Place Prism?
- What successes are we having teaching about the interconnections of the economy, culture, and ecology of place?
- Bridging research & place (local ←> global)
- What’s the goal? Are we connecting to place as the spark/ inspiration to learn more about science? Or are we learning about science to get excited to go outside and see science in action?
- How can local scientific investigations contribute to broader global environmental issues?
- Impacts of place-based education: evaluation & research
- What is most impactful as we do place-based education?
- What data are we finding that is not supporting a place-based education?
- What new questions are we interested to answer?
Check out our full Request for Presentation Proposals for details.
Proposals and Deadline: Proposals are due Monday, March 3, 2024, @ 5 pm MST. To submit, please fill out this Google form. No more than two proposals per person.
During the
Event
Keynote Address and Discussion
Dr. Bryan Shuman, Wyoming Excellence Chair Professor in Geology and Geophysics, has taught at the University of Wyoming since 2007 and uses geological evidence to examine how climate change affects water resources and ecosystems. With his students and postdocs, he reconstructs environmental dynamics across North America since the last ice age to evaluate the full range of climate variability and to test the climate models used to make future projections. Their work also reveals the role of climate variability in past ecosystem changes, particularly in lakes and forests, from Wyoming to New England. He was co-lead of the 2021 Greater Yellowstone Climate Assessment and serves as one of the principal investigators leading the ongoing NSF-funded WyACT (Wyoming Anticipating the Climate Transitions) project, which aims to help Wyoming communities prepare for the future. Past awards include the William S. Cooper Award from the Ecological Society of America, the Henry C. Cowles Award from the American Association of Geographers, and an NSF CAREER grant. He was previously a tenured faculty member at the University of Minnesota, a NOAA Climate and Global Change post-doctoral fellow at the University of Oregon and studied at Colorado College and Brown University.
Lightning-style Presentations
~4 minute presentations that challenge the presenters to condense their thoughts and ideas into a dynamic, engaging format. Presenters in this category will be asked to submit 12 slides prior to the symposium to be compiled into one seamless, pre-timed presentation in which each slide will be given 20 seconds of screen time. we’ll transition from presentation to presentation without pause, creating a collaborative, innovative picture of place-based education best practices.
Student Project Showcase
An opportunity for students to share about a place-based project that they have done. We encourage the showcase to include visuals and a chance for interacting with Symposium attendees. The interactions will be informal, and a chance to engage further about the topic and impact of the project. Check out examples of place-based projects here to spark ideas.
Individual Presentations
Ten-minute individual presentations during concurrent sessions, focused on one of the symposium themes. Each session includes time for Q&A .
Awards
Voted on by attendees for the best student project, lightning-style, and individual presentation.
Missed the Symposium?
Check out the 2023 Place-Based Education Symposium proceedings for ideas and inspiration.
Check out the 2024 Place-Based Education Symposium proceedings for ideas and inspiration.
