Connecting Students to Curriculum, Community, and Caring for Our Planet
By: Whitney Aragaki, Kirstin J. Milks
Monroe County Community School Corporation (MCCSC) teacher Dr. Kirstin Milks recently published “Place-Based Science Teaching: Connecting Students to Curriculum, Community, and Caring for Our Planet” with co-author Whitney Aragaki. Milks teaches AP Biology and introductory science at Bloomington High School South (BHSS).
In her book, Milks defines place-based teaching as the practice of students and teachers grounding their learning in the place where they live and love. Milks draws on this concept and her 16 years of teaching experience to share examples of how students learn better through projects with local impact.
In an article Milks wrote for Education Week, she said, “… One of the hardest things to do in grades 6-12 science education is to show young people the impact of what they are learning and why it matters.”
This is exactly what her new book offers to K-12 science educators. “Place-Based Science Teaching” offers practical lesson ideas, along with insights and examples from educators across the country.
Milks says that place-based science teaching helps students personally connect to what they are learning.
“When students engage in place-based learning, their engagement and motivation transform their learning. It’s such a delight as a teacher to watch our young people learn to share their ideas, overcome challenges, and feel pride and ownership of their work when they learn this way!” she said.
Milks’s book incorporates lesson ideas based on projects she designed for her students at Bloomington High School South, and, in some cases, projects that her students designed.
In the 2024-25 school year, Milks’s students asked to work on a project that would have an impact on a real-world problem. They asked for help entering the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow STEM competition to work on a project that would impact climate change. Their idea was to address urban heat islands—areas of concentrated heat due to buildings and pavement.
“What my students focused on – and what won them the Solve for Tomorrow ‘Sustainability Innovation Award’ – was to utilize the kind of highly reflective paint that has gained attention in Indiana for its ability to lower building temperatures by reflecting away sunlight and thereby reducing urban heat island effects,” said Milks in Education Week.
The students, together with art students, used the highly reflective paint to design and paint a mural highlighting climate change at Bloomington’s WonderLab Science Museum.
Through this example, “Place-Based Science Teaching” emphasizes how students are more motivated to learn when they can make an impact on a big issue on a local level.
Under Milks’s guidance, two BHSS student teams have now won the national STEM competition two years in a row for their innovative projects.
Milks says that when students are invested in what they’re learning, it changes their futures.
“This way of teaching has helped encourage many of my students to work in a science field, but students don’t need to build a STEM career for place-based learning to make a difference,” she said. “My former students are now leveraging their place-based learning in a wide variety of roles, from economics (understanding the history of a place) to physical therapy (suggesting parks where people can practice specific exercises) to art (inspired by local materials and landscapes) to non-profit management (taking inventory of community partners) to careers in the military (learning local customs to help support local contacts’ safety).”
A graduate of Stanford University’s Schools of Medicine (Ph.D.) and Education (M.A.), Milks is a National Board Certified Teacher, a Presidential Awardee for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching, a Lilly Teacher Creativity Fellow, the 2025 president of the National Association of Biology Teachers, her Girl Scout council’s Leader of the Year, and a Senior Fellow at the Knowles Teacher Initiative.
In MCCSC schools, science education is strong and students have access to robust science and STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) curricular and extracurricular offerings. All schools offer STEAM education K-12. Students build and learn through FabLabs and makerspaces, robotics teams, computer science curriculum, a mobile STEM lab, a corporation-wide STEAM night, a fourth-grade maker challenge and more. Five schools are also STEM certified through the Indiana Department of Education. Learn more at mccsc.edu/explore.
