Revisiting the Meanings of 'Place' for New Zealand Place-based Outdoor Education

Approaches to place-based education seek to connect learners to local environments through a variety of channels that increase environmental awareness and connectedness to particular parts of the world. The concept of 'place meanings' encompasses the subjective ways people construct meaning through experiencing an array of settings. While place meanings are personal, often with a human focus that are open to interpretation, place-based education is framed more concretely within the particulars of local environments. The purpose of this paper is to promote the utilisation of 'place meanings' within place-based educational ideals by: (1) arguing for the need for such an approach to be positioned alongside alternative, existing themes prevalent in New Zealand outdoor education; (2) revisiting some of the conceptual and historical underpinnings of the meanings of place and place-based educational ideals to show similarities and differences between the concepts; and (3) presenting a synthesis of place meanings within place-based theory to inspire a useful approach to New Zealand place-based outdoor education.