Learning with the land: How sixth graders restory interactions with the land through field experiences

Abstract

The recent pandemics and social movements call for the need to pause and rethink our relationship with more-than-human worlds, particularly our activities in relation to the land. In our work as a team of Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers, educators, and designers, we explored how land-based pedagogy can contribute to a transformative learning experience for sixth graders through disrupting the dominant ways of knowing and relating to the land. Specifically, our work is guided by the research question: how do learners express relationship with the land in the restorying of their river trip experience? We share data from thirty-nine sixth-grader participants who completed a restorying project about their cross-cultural river trip and reflected on these experiences through interviews. Our findings present three cases that illustrate how sixth graders demonstrate different forms of interacting and relating with the land. We discuss insights regarding students' land-based experiences as well as restorying as a practice to restore relationships with the land-based pedagogical approach.