Parchment to Touchscreen: Landscape Journey and Experience for 21st Century Learning

Abstract

Experiences of landscape journey are informed and mitigated by modalities of place-based practices. Historically, documentation and transmission of landscape knowledge was limited to narratives of those with power and influence. Today, the democratization of power and decentralization of knowledge, particularly as affected by technology, are projected to affect powerful changes for our future. This project creates innovation in place-based learning through an interdisciplinary approach combining landscape design for outdoor learning environments with collaborative curriculum development. Educators from Gesher Jewish Day School in Fairfax, VA were involved in this collaboration that has yielded an exciting, fresh approach to engaging student relationships to landscape. Students connect to narratives of landscape journey and experience in Jewish tradition while engaging in guided personal explorations of place. In the process, new wisdom, the "Torah of Place," is generated, documented and transmitted through both traditional sense-of-place activities and pedagogies integrating modern mobile technology such as smartphones and tablets.