Cultivating Urban Naturalists: Teaching Experiential, Place-based Learning through Nature Journaling in Central Park

Preservice educators engaged in experiential, place-based learning through a semester-long assignment in which they observed a specific place in Central Park in Manhattan, New York, and kept a nature journal. The assignment was organized around two pivotal elements: direct, sensory experience and time in place. Both elements added vital dimensions to learning in unanticipated ways. Ultimately, students cultivated naturalist skills, realized the potency of the nature journal as a tool for environmental and geographic education, and made a pedagogical discovery that the learning process is more important than the end product.