Building Relationships with Land 

Dr. Christine Lee, clee@labschool.ucla.edu

Dr. Megan Franke, mfranke@ucla.edu

School of Education and Information Studies

This academic year, Intermediate teachers are implementing a multidisciplinary curriculum on the history and importance of land. Therefore, Dr. Megan Franke (PI) and Dr. Christine Lee (Co-PI) are collaborating with Intermediate teachers from Rooms 1 & 2 to examine how students’ understanding of land changes over the academic year. Our data collection will include copies of students’ gardening journals that teachers are using to continuously document and reflect on the importance of land, classroom conversations of students sharing what they wrote in gardening journals, and photographs of students planting and taking care of campus plants. These data sources will be analyzed to track the changing understandings of how students define land, how important it is to have relationships with the land, and the importance of taking action in ways that sustainably support land. Participation in this study is voluntary and will remain confidential. Any questions about the project can be directed to Dr. Christine Lee at clee@labschool.ucla.edu or Dr. Megan Franke at mfranke@ucla.edu.