The Learning Landscape

The sciences of literacy and place-based education have historically been on two separate tracks. In The Learning Landscape, Alvera McMillan persuasively brings them together. Working with "challenged readers," she demonstrates that place-based approaches to literacy are more engaging for students and lead to increased academic success.

-David Sobel, Professor Emeritus Antioch University, New England

McMillan reminds educators and others how adolescent learning can reflect "meaning, value, and joy." This book is a celebration of the exceptional ways she intersected literacy, nature place-based learning, and community into an interdisciplinary pedagogy. Her framework is powerful. Like McMillan, every educator should consciously seek students' strengths while building their capacity as learners within a community context.

-Margaret-Mary Sulentic Dowell, PhD Cecil "Pete" Taylor Endowed Professor, Louisiana State University

When students' lived experiences, local ecosystems, and community knowledge are integrated into the learning landscape, education becomes a force for resilience in rural communities. As public schools grapple with academic pressures alongside growing concerns about student well-being, rural communities face persistent economic and environmental challenges. This book examines a natureinfused, asset-based approach to adolescent literacy learning as a strategy for sustaining people, places, and communities during periods of disruption and uncertainty. Blending storytelling with an actionable instructional framework, it o ers educators, researchers, and community partners guidance for designing interdisciplinary, nature place-based learning experiences that position young people as active contributors to their communities.