Thinking Local through Sources: Implementing Place-Based Education & the Inquiry Design Model

Authors

• Kelli L. Knight, University of KentuckyFollow

Abstract

Place-based educational methods are utilized across subjects to connect students with their local communities, and tasking them to grapple and solve real-world issues. Since place-based education (PBE) centers the students’ sense of place, this allows for the social studies disciplines to provide opportunities for place-based practices to take root. Through the use of the Inquiry Design Model (IDM), specifically through source material, place-based methods can be incorporated into the social studies classroom. The purpose of this paper is to provide a practical way in which, both pre-service and in-service, can modify IDMs to make them place-based by using local sources. More specifically, this paper serves as a practitioner-focused article to show educators how this modification process can be conducted, and literature to support this practical implementation. The example in this paper recounts a workshop that both in-service and pre-service teachers took part in at the 2025 Kentucky Council for the Social Studies (KCSS) conference, where participants were asked to modify the sources section of an IDM from C3Teachers, and tasked to find locally-centered sources.

Recommended Citation

Knight, Kelli L. (2026) "Thinking Local through Sources: Implementing Place-Based Education & the Inquiry Design Model," Kentucky Teacher Education Journal: The Journal of the Teacher Education Division of the Kentucky Council for Exceptional Children: Vol. 12: Iss. 2, Article 3.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.61611/2995-5904.1083
Available at: https://digitalcommons.murraystate.edu/ktej/vol12/iss2/3