The GLSI Model:
Place-Based Stewardship Education
Transforming Educational Opportunities and Developing Tomorrow's Leaders Through Youth-Led Stewardship of the Great Lakes Basin.
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Developed and refined over 20 years of implementation with schools and communities in diverse settings, GLSI's model of Place-Based Stewardship Education (PBSE) isn't about a single classroom lesson, school program, or offsite field trip. PBSE puts students (and teachers) in their communities, exploring local issues of environmental and community health, engaging with nearby experts, and ultimately taking action by designing and implementing stewardship-based action projects. This model connects student learning to their lived experiences, cultural values, and the opportunities they see to make their community healthier, safer, and a place where both people and nature can thrive.
With student learning experiences, leadership development, and action projects that unfold over the course of an entire school year, GLSI's PBSE model is built on sustained school-community partnerships, immersive collaboration between students and community experts, and year-round support from GLSI program leaders and teacher mentors.
The Power of Place in Learning & Life
Place-Based Stewardship Education isn't about a single classroom lesson, school program, or offsite field trip. PBSE puts students (and their teachers) in their communities, exploring issues of environmental and community health, engaging with local experts, and ultimately taking action by designing and implementing stewardship-based projects. This model connects student learning to their lived experiences, cultural values, and the opportunities they see to make their community healthier, safer, and a place where both people and nature can thrive.
Through the support of GLSI throughout the school year, students and teachers explore and address local real-world issues in their communities, with youth leading both learning and stewardship actions that result in increased engagement and agency in student learning, meaningful outcomes for local communities and environments, and sustained leadership development. One of the most powerful (and unique) aspects of the GLSI model is the year-end convening of students, teachers, community leaders, local businesses, and regional stakeholders for the final step of the PBSE process–"Celebrate & Share." These Community Forum events, also known as "Student Showcases," give GLSI-participating youth an authentic, meaningful opportunity to share the outcomes of their learning and stewardship action projects with peers and local leaders, leading the way in deepening their community's understanding of their place, its issues, and the opportunities to make it a healthier, safer, more just, and nature-connected place to call home.
Teaching through Place, Leading with Purpose
To create opportunities within the education system for young people to move from students, to stewards, to leaders requires teachers that are trained, prepared, committed, and supported to approach their craft and connections with students through local contexts and learning experiences. Place-based approaches to teaching and student learning are transformative, but also not the norm. Most teachers enter the profession with little-to-no background in the theory, pedagogy, or implementation strategies associated with place-based education. Yet, as GLSI and many other institutions and programs have found, place-based teaching has a profound ability to increase teacher satisfaction, commitment, and creativity! Opportunities to teach through place-based approaches also have a positive impact on teacher self-efficacy and retention in their positions.
GLSI empowers a network of 500+ teachers each year to transform student learning and leadership opportunities, from taking their first steps beyond the classroom, to sustaining complex youth-led stewardship projects within their communities. Underpinning every lesson plan, every field experience, and every student stewardship project, are the six elements of GLSI's Place-Based Stewardship Education model, GLSI's Guiding Principles for Exemplary Place-Based Stewardship Education, and an ever-growing teacher toolkit of lesson plans, project guides, teaching supports, best practices, and resources from across the GLSI Network. GLSI provides year-round support and project partnership with its network of teachers through annual summer institute intensive multi-day learning, in-service professional development days, school-year dinner & dialogue learning series, and opportunities to learn from peer teachers across the GLSI Network.
Connecting Learners & Teachers to Place & Purpose through Community Partnerships
Students and educators engaged with GLSI don't just experience hands-on, community-centered learning in their place. They actively collaborate with, learn from, and take action alongside nearby experts, community-serving organizations, and local businesses and municipalities. A core principle of the GLSI model is to develop and sustain robust school-community partnerships that can expand both authentic student learning beyond the classroom and the community reach of partners to share their expertise, resources, and guidance for stewardship solutions in local places. To carry out this critical aspect of Place-Based Stewardship Education, GLSI convenes and connects a network of local partners that can collaborate with students and educators throughout their project process, and provides in-depth training to better prepare those partners to work effectively with, and actively support, K-12 students and educators.
From building community partners into the leadership teams of GLSI Hubs, to building relationships between schools and the appropriate partners for stewardship project needs, to convening partners as authentic local audiences for students and educators to share their work with, GLSI integrates the wider community into every aspect of its programs and projects. This approach ensures that student exploration of local issues, data collection, and stewardship action project design are all aligned with, and responsive to, local environmental issues and the needs of a community. Each GLSI Hub maintains a network of dozens of local-regional partner organizations, and helps them extend their community reach and impact each year through the place-based stewardship education process.
The GLSI Network is growing
Twenty years on, GLSI’s vision has come a long way toward being realized throughout Michigan, and we now look to develop and support the next generation of Great Lakes Stewards throughout the entire Basin.