Professional Development on a Sustainable Shoestring: Propagating Place-Based Art Education in Fertile Soil

Research on the impact of place-based education (PBE), in which educational experiences are situated in the local environment (Smith, 2002), consistently suggests academic, social, and affective benefits across demographics. Traditionally, professional development supporting PBE has been designed to support large-scale initiatives. In this study, a bottom-up approach for expanding the reach of place-based art education (PBAE) was implemented with teachers (n=11) from a school district in the southeastern United States through two sequential professional development workshops. We examined the extent to which this minimal intervention impacted teachers’ understanding, buy-in, and creation of PBAE curricula. Results suggest that this organic approach, with teachers positioned as agents of change, can build upon pre-existing teacher interest and equip teachers to expand PBAE into their teaching contexts.