About PLACE!
In conjunction with the film Butte, America, Rattlesnake Productions is developing a multimedia educational outreach program called About PLACE! (AP!). This program fulfills RPI’s mission of creating culturally relevant programs that promote a better understanding and appreciation of Western history and culture. Focusing on place-based and inquiry-based learning (see below), AP! utilizes local culture, history, and environmental issues as the foundation for student-initiated research and community service projects nationwide. An array of curriculum materials are used to explore the themes and issues set forth in the film Butte, America, including the web site, a DVD, study guide, community-based student research projects, and teacher workshops.
About PLACE! encourages young people, teachers, and communities to explore the relationship among People, Land, and Community Engagement (PLACE), and how these relationships might evolve. The project conveys history as a living process, a work in progress. By demonstrating that history is something that everyone has a hand in constructing, AP! encourages young people to assume a greater degree of responsibility for their neighborhoods and their communities.
Place-Based, Inquiry-Based Learning
Relationships between human and geographical factors are often overlooked or undervalued in accounts of how contemporary society came into existence. This leads to a sense of identity based not on character development and active citizenship but market-driven consumption. However, history is a living exercise, a work in progress, something that everyone has a hand in constructing. Place-based, inquiry-based learning utilizes local circumstances as the basis for coursework., focusing on subject matter of immediate relevance. The place-based, inquiry-based approach successfully integrates different areas of subject matter, can be tailored to student needs, and can be easily incorporated into existing curricula. Equally important, it satisfies all applicable national standards, a matter of increasing concern as the emphasis on testing increases.
Clark Fork Watershed Education Project
To help develop, implement, and ensure the success of About PLACE!, Rattlesnake Productions is working in partnership with the Clark Fork Watershed Education Program (CFWEP). Sponsored by Montana Tech of the University of Montana and staffed by the institution’s scientists and engineers, CFWEP uses the extensive environmental cleanup work now under way in the Clark Fork River Basin as a living laboratory for elementary and high school students and teachers. About PLACE! will focus on schools and communities in the Upper Clark Fork River watershed, reinforcing the social, cultural, and historical importance of Butte. The partnership between AP! and CFWEP represents a powerful marriage, bringing together RPI’s expertise in the humanities and Montana Tech’s expertise in science education.