The Process of Creating Place-based, Environmental Children’s Literature

This paper summarizes the findings of a literature review on place-based education and presents the idea that environmental literature can be a tool for providing both parents and educators an avenue of offering children a place-based experience. It builds on the ideas that the most common barriers associated with ensuring that students are engaged with their place are time and monetary restraints. Literature minimizes these challenges by bringing a place-based experience into homes and classrooms and helps to inspire children and adults alike to explore their place and become actively engaged citizens. This paper then describes the process of creating an environmental place-based children’s book through the original experience of the author herself. The completed capstone will culminate with the publication of a children’s book set in Montana where the main character, a young girl named Madison, explores the landscape and records her adventures in her nature journal. This book also endeavors to teach young people about the importance of citizen science and the native species the American pika. Through the lens of the young explorer children will be exposed to the flora and fauna of Montana as well as learn the importance of climate change in the future of pika populations