Situating Ourselves in the Salish Sea: Using Experiential Learning and Storytelling to Inspire Critical Thinking about Place

FAIN: AE-269104-20

Whatcom Community College (Bellingham, WA 98226-8003)
Anna Booker (Project Director: July 2019 to October 2023)

A two-year curriculum development project that would result in new courses on the history, cultures, and science of the Salish Sea.

"Situating Ourselves in the Salish Sea" will engage Whatcom Community College (WCC) students and faculty in the practice of place-based teaching and learning. Faculty from a broad range of disciplines will design curriculum that integrates the Salish Sea context into their own classes. The project will feature a cohort of Salish Sea linked courses and digital Story Maps developed by students that recognize the Salish Sea as a Cultural Heritage site. The project will partner with local tribes and organizations and will reaffirm the relevance of the humanities across the College. The project will help WCC students earn credits in the College’s new Culture and Society Pathway. Credits earned will transfer to nearby Western Washington University’s new minor in Salish Sea Studies. The project will culminate in a professional development day for K-12 teachers to help them integrate digital Story Maps into lesson plans. All digital Story Maps created will be freely accessible to the public.

Associated Products

Salish Sea Curriculum Repository (Database/Archive/Digital Edition)
Title: Salish Sea Curriculum Repository
Author: Anna Booker, Natalie Baloy, Neah Monteiro, Rowena McKernan
Abstract: The Salish Sea Curriculum Repository is a collection of open educational resources (OER) for use in land- and place-based, experiential, multidisciplinary, and transboundary teaching and learning in the Salish Sea bioregion. Our hope is that these resources can support faculty and students in higher education in learning together to develop relational accountability with/in the Salish Sea. We update this repository periodically, knowing that this is an emerging area of study and changing all the time. We welcome and review submissions of instructional and learning materials to enhance the repository.
Year: 2020
Primary URL: http://whatcomdigitalcommons.org/s/salishsea/page/welcome
Primary URL Description: Whatcom Digital Commons
Access Model: Open access

An Omeka S Repository for Place- and Land-Based Teaching and Learning (Article)
Title: An Omeka S Repository for Place- and Land-Based Teaching and Learning
Author: Ro McKernan
Author: Neah Ingram-Monteiro
Abstract: Our small community college library developed a learning object repository to support a cross- institutional, land-based, multidisciplinary academic initiative using the open-source platform Omeka S. Drawing on critical, feminist, and open practices, we document the relational labor, dialogue, and tensions involved with this open education project. This case study shares our experience with tools and processes that may be helpful for other small-scale open education initiatives, including user-centered iterative design, copyright education, metadata design, and user- interface development in Omeka S.
Year: 2022
Primary URL: https://doi.org/10.6017/ital.v41i3.15123
Primary URL Description: ejournal
Access Model: Open access
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES AND LIBRARIES
Publisher: INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES AND LIBRARIES

Introduction to the Salish Sea: Place-based learning goes virtual (Film/TV/Video Broadcast or Recording)
Title: Introduction to the Salish Sea: Place-based learning goes virtual
Writer: Anna Booker
Director: Jeffrey Karoff
Producer: Anna Booker
Abstract: A video about the Pivot to Online Learning (Spring 2020) documents the success (from the students’ perspectives) of the online version of a course that brought students into the environments where they live, work, and study.
Year: 2020
Primary URL: https://youtu.be/DT0wsEO26ic
Primary URL Description: YouTube
Access Model: Open Access
Format: Video
Format: Web

Results from Year One of the National Endowment for the Humanities funded project, Situating Ourselves in the Salish Sea (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Results from Year One of the National Endowment for the Humanities funded project, Situating Ourselves in the Salish Sea
Abstract: Project Director, Anna Booker, presented, "Results from Year One of the National Endowment for the Humanities funded project, Situating Ourselves in the Salish Sea," at the Whatcom Museum as part of the Whatcom County Historical Society Lecture Series.
Author: Anna Booker
Date: 3/11/21
Location: Whatcom Museum
Primary URL: https://youtu.be/iOxT-u_jD14
Primary URL Description: YouTube

Whatcom Creek Watershed: ArcGIS Story Map (Course or Curricular Material)
Title: Whatcom Creek Watershed: ArcGIS Story Map
Author: Ian Stacy
Abstract: The purpose of this quarter-long Story Map project was for students to practice interdisciplinary thinking across natural sciences, social sciences, humanities, and indigenous ways of knowing in the international Salish Sea. Beginning in Week 1 and culminating with a project unveiling, students engaged in research about a watershed topic and collaborated with each other to tell the story of the ecology, geography, history, and archaeology, as well as the social and environmental issues affecting the Whatcom Creek Watershed. The GIS faculty lead, Ian Stacy, wove the disciplines together in an ArcGIS Story Map with the place (Whatcom Watershed) as the unifying theme.
Year: 2021
Primary URL: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/6505919a6b0445d3873a52a41873ee18
Primary URL Description: ArcGIS
Audience: Undergraduate

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