Clemson faculty member Steph Dean is partnering with school districts and nonprofits to research what makes place-based education effective. Across South Carolina, her work is helping educators bring state curriculum into local environments and landscapes that benefit students cognitively, socially and physically.
Steph Dean was a kindergarten-through-sixth-grade teacher for 11 years before taking a year off, buying a travel trailer and visiting multiple national parks across the country. Throughout her journey, she learned more about national parks from park exhibits and rangers than she ever could have from a book. From this experience, she says she “fell back in love” with education and decided to devote the rest of her career to place-based learning, education and research.
Many years later, Dean, an assistant professor of science education in the Clemson University College of Education, is back in a park. But this time, it’s a state park, and she’s on a pontoon boat with a group of third grade students. It’s a warm morning in Devils Fork State Park, about 45 minutes north of Clemson’s main campus, and the front of the boat is loaded with kids from McKissick Elementary donned in life jackets and covered in sunscreen. Their guide, Kerry McKenzie — director of the Jocassee Wild Child program, affectionately referred to as “Captain Kerr Bear” — has prepped the students to keep their eyes and ears open, and their behinds seated, when the boat is in motion.
After the literal onboarding process, the voyage on Lake Jocassee gets underway. However, the boat comes to an abrupt halt after less than 400 yards. The captain has spotted a common loon, a bird that uses the lake for its winter residency, near the front of the boat. Recognizing the opportunity, McKenzie quickly pulls a plastic tub from the back of the boat and hands out drawstring bags with binoculars. As the bird dives underwater, she invites the students to spot the loon as it reemerges. The students gasp as one spots it off to starboard.
Dean, who has made this trip despite a broken ankle healing in a boot, is furiously scribbling notes in the back of the boat as McKenzie describes the bird’s characteristics and the students study it. The captain then transitions to a binder, teaching the students about other animals native to Lake Jocassee. They’ll encounter fish and perhaps even an otter, the mascot of Jocassee Wild Child, she tells them.
“We’ll see fish when we get off the boat, and if you stand really still, they might even nibble your toes,” McKenzie says. “It’s free exfoliation.”
Even though the captain is not teaching in a traditional classroom, she just demonstrated that the best lesson for students is the one that presents itself in the moment.
“This is essentially educational improv,” Dean explains. “Kerry comes out here with so much information to share, and the time to do it presents itself when a bird flies in, or an animal emerges from out of nowhere. There’s always material for her to lean on, but these types of spontaneous things help to embed learning with students.”
Bringing Best Practices to Partners and to Campus
Through partnerships with schools and nonprofits, Dean researches place-based education firsthand, observing what makes outdoor learning programs like Jocassee Wild Child effective. Dean hopes the information she and fellow researchers document will encourage other educators to incorporate as much place-based education as possible into their work.
In another partnership and research initiative, Dean has worked with Kevin Stinehart EdD ’27, a third grade teacher at Central Academy of the Arts, an elementary school down the road from Clemson in Central, South Carolina, to assist in studying how he incorporates place-based education into his teaching. The two plan and coordinate fun and informative activities that also conform to state science standards.
“The physical benefits are obvious, from more vitamin D to even fighting the current wave of short-sightedness caused by so many screens,” Dean says, “but the social, emotional and cognitive benefits make learning more meaningful and memorable. The learning is more likely to ‘stick.’”
In one of Dean and Stinehart’s activities, a standard that covers local wildlife and the natural environment translates into a lesson on camouflage, where students create and hide cutouts of bugs using color and shape. They didn’t choose animals that existed on the other side of the world, but those that could be found behind Central Academy.
“You can see the difference in learning,” says Stinehart, who is also pursuing his Doctor of Education at Clemson in education systems improvement science.
“They’re noticing how the forest smells different each season. They see it. Their tactile senses get involved,” Stinehart says. “It takes something that was just a lesson and makes it a memory, not just something they are memorizing for a quiz or a test.”
Dean and fellow faculty also share best practices with education majors preparing to enter the teaching field. Through Dean’s Pedagogies of Outdoor Learning course, education majors often find themselves at the Clemson Outdoor Lab, located 5 miles from campus on a peninsula within Lake Hartwell, or on the main campus, learning in nature while gaining knowledge of why the place-based approach works so well.
“Clemson is really well situated to engage in place-based education given our location in the Upstate and the incredible ecosystems, geography and culture we have here.”
Steph Dean, assistant professor of science education
Water quality tests, combined with lessons on societal water access, bring together science and social studies standards. Students engage in “egg drop” exercises that introduce physics and materials science. The students double as research participants by answering surveys after the experience to contribute to Dean’s growing research in the area.
“I want to really understand the effect these types of experiences have on students and on the teachers using them,” Dean says. “That’s how we effect some positive change in schools around us and set a standard informed by data about how and why to use place-based education.”
While the pressures of curriculum can make teachers feel boxed in, place-based education allows educators to expand their teaching beyond the classroom. Clemson is well situated to engage in place-based education, Dean says, given the incredible ecosystems, geography and culture surrounding it. Teaching outside can present challenges, but the data Dean and her fellow faculty members disseminate can help educators lean into local assets and gain confidence along the way.
“The College of Education is increasingly working toward partnering with schools to support teachers in their efforts to get outside and teach,” she says.
For Dean and her colleagues, local landscapes, communities, histories and environments are powerful resources for learning. Their goal is to help educators and students discover the benefits of these resources.
Sticky Lessons
Back on Lake Jocassee, Captain Kerr Bear relays the story of Attakullakulla, the Cherokee chief who was the father of Princess Jocassee. Dean, still scribbling in her notebook, takes note of the masterful history lesson unfolding before her.
“He was such a cool guy, that’s why ‘cool’ is in his name twice,” she says.
It’s a forgivable pun because it works. The Attakulla Lodge was named after the chief, and it was a destination in the valley before it was flooded to become the lake it is today. The students surrounding McKenzie are enraptured by this story, many looking around as they realize the lodge is still mostly intact beneath their boat.
Dean often draws comparisons between lessons like this one and other learning experiences billed as “outdoor education” that expose children to a beautiful landscape, only to usher them inside to sit through a lecture accompanied by a slideshow presentation. This is different.
“Having formal data is really important so that we can expand our knowledge of what makes environmental education or a field trip so effective,” Dean says. “You can tell it’s effective just by looking at how these students react when it’s done well — they’re engaged, they’re excited, they’re learning.”
Dean, the guides and the chaperones on the trip agreed that when parents ask these students about their day, they’re likely to say they just had a fun day on the lake and didn’t learn much. Then they’ll spend the rest of the night sharing information about the migratory habits of the common loon and the story of Attakullakulla, who was so cool they had to put it in his name twice.
Dean and faculty in the College of Education are incorporating more place-based education into their teaching and bringing best practices to districts and schools interested in leveraging the benefits of teaching on the water, in a forest, at a museum, or anywhere a lesson can be elevated through a student’s surroundings.
In addition to advancing place-based education, Dean helped launch the Clemson Outdoor Collective, a community of faculty, staff, students and community partners who champion outdoor learning and well-being.
Michael Staton M ’15 is the communications director for the College of Education.
