Location Biography Project

Concentrates of Place Assignment

Shelley E. Rose

This “Concentrates of Place” assignment is adapted from Marianne Braca’s 2021 essay “How My Geography Class Used Tins to Tell the Story of Place.” Braca (a National Geographic Certified Educator) was inspired by artist Tanya Shadrick’s project “Concentrates of Place (2016-).” In her creations, Shadrick curates “place” in small tins as a representation of the places she has visited. In her words, they are “memories made tangible.” In geography, a space is an absolute location, such as GPS coordinates. Place is more ephemeral and different for each individual experiencing the space. Place is the character of a space, the feelings it inspires, the memories the space invokes.

This assignment is an excellent start on your journey of thinking critically about location, space, and place for the Location Biography Project.

Learning Outcomes

  • Students will understand and apply the geographic concept of “place”
  • Students will practice digital publishing techniques, including H5P
  • Students will write for a general audience

First, we need an overview of the concepts of space and place. For a detailed overview, watch this 12-minute video. “Location, Space, and Place” by Heath Robinson, Ph.D..

An open silver tin laid in front of a woodland fairy garden scene.
“Curating a Place,” Shelley E. Rose, 2022.

What Goes in Your Tin? Project Guidelines

Follow these steps from complete your “Concentrates of Place” Assignment

  1. Pick up a tin from your instructor in class or during student hours.
  2. Choose a location with meaning for you and curate objects into the tin. NOTE: if you place perishable or natural objects have a plan for their sustainability or removal from the tin.
  3. Take a photo of the tin and contents (visit the Digital Design Studio or contact your instructor for assistance if needed)
  4. Go to the GSSE Learning Resources and Reflections ebook for 2023 at https://pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu/geographyssed2023/ and log in.
  5. Create a page for your Concentrates of Place reflection following this tutorial https://pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu/csugelab/chapter/createpage/
    • Elements of your Reflection
      • What “place” did you curate?
      • What is the absolute or relative location (Share absolute location only if you are comfortable. For example, don’t list the coordinates of your home but give a relative location description of the place you curate). Embed a Google map in your page to illustrate following these instructions https://pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu/csugelab/chapter/embedmap/
      • What did you include in your tin? (use H5P to take us on a tour of your objects- see this tutorial to create your H5P element https://pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu/csugelab/chapter/h5pguide/
      • How do these items represent the “place” meaning of the location or space?
      • What does this place mean to you? What might it mean from someone else’s perspective? Be sure to cite sources if you draw on secondary sources outside of your own experience with the location.
  6. For example Concentrates of Place reflections see https://pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu/geographyssed/part/place/. Use the navigation buttons at the bottom of the page or the contents menu to browse the projects.

Potential H5P Content Types

Visit https://h5p.org/ for general information about curating content using H5P.

  • Use Image Hotspots to post images of your tin and its items. You can use the hotspot for curating the sense of place
  • Use Agamotto to create layers or sequences as you analyze and curate place in your tin
  • See Appendix I in the Geography for Social Studies Educators student research ebook for a full collection of H5P and Pressbooks tutorials by Heather Caprette, Sr. Media Specialist & Instructional Designer, Center for eLearning, Cleveland State University

 

Additional Resources for Teaching Place

Vicky Ellaway- Barnard, “The Identity Game,” Teaching Geography 43:1 (Spring 2018): 19-21. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26455212

Vicky Ellaway-Barnard, “Teaching Geography” Worksheet on Place.  https://www.geography.org.uk/write/MediaUploads/Journals/Ellaway-Barnard_Additional_Resource_2_Theorists_-_Completed.pdf

License

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Geography For Social Studies Educators by Shelley E. Rose is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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