1. A brief background on your current class level and status as an ENVS major or minor, including all current/completed ENVS core courses and courses related to your research
I am a sophomore environmental studies major with a concentration in Place-Based Education in Late Industrialized countries. Last summer I studied abroad in Japan for seven weeks, where we performed situated field research. This experience helped me understand the implications of doing research while abroad.
- Completed ENVS core courses
- ENVS 160: Introduction to Environmental Studies
- ENVS 220: Environmental Analysis
- Related Courses:
- ED 205: Education in a Complex World
- This class included a service learning and interview aspect in which I attended a local elementary school and learned from the teachers and students there. This experience will help me while I’m in New Zealand since I will be service learning at schools there as well.
- ED 446: Inquiry into Teaching/Learning
- This class provided a deeper understanding of the issues facing teachers today. We explored the neoliberalization of schools, teaching pedagogues, teacher education programs, and the issues surrounding curriculum creation.
- SOAN 110: Intro to Cultural Anthropology
- This class focuses on ethnographic methods including interviews and participant observation. Emphasis is put on taking a holistic approach, which includes many different disciplines. It also includes an ethnographic research paper that will give me more experience working with this methodology.
- Photography II
- In this class, I will visually communicate what “place” means to different people, here and abroad, for my final photography exhibit.
- ED 205: Education in a Complex World
2. Whether you are applying for a $1000 or $2500 stipend, and your travel timetable including how long you expect to do research at an international location via the stipend
I am applying for the $2500 stipend. With $2500, I would spend about a month and a half in New Zealand, and I would be able to do research in Christchurch, where Bronwyn Hayward of the University of Canterbury has agreed to support my research. Since my research relies so heavily on place, I would like to be able to do research in multiple locations to document the similarities and differences. Ideally, I would research a school in a more rural part of New Zealand where there are larger Maori populations, as well as a more urban location where I might be able to compare that school to the practices of schools more involved in place-based education. Since place-based education varies so much based on place, I’m interested in what differences in curriculum there might be and how implementation varies. Please see my timeline, which includes various contacts that have increased the feasibility of my project.
3. How you intend to benefit as an ENVS major (e.g., by completing a thesis on the topic) or minor as a result of this stipend
This project would be the basis for my thesis as an Environmental Studies major. It would greatly further my knowledge of Place-Based Education, and it would improve my ability to do situated research. My concentration is situated in late-industrialized countries (ideally with strong indigenous populations), and New Zealand is the perfect case study for that. Place is an integral part of my concentration, so being able to research places across the globe will greatly strengthen my future work. Since place-based education is such an interdisciplinary field, I could present my research findings to various groups on campus, including but not limited to education classes on the graduate and undergraduate campuses, the environmental studies poster celebration, the anthropology department, and other scholars interested in geography or international education policy.