Louisiana School District Achieves Higher Scores in Statewide LEAP 21 Test

The school district of East Feliciana, Louisiana was having difficulty in maintaining academic standards for 4th and 8th grade students. It employed a new placed-based approach to learning that, over three years, meeasurably improved student performance.

The Rural School and Community Trust reports:

"Using the environment as the theme of their new place-based learning program, students studied local soil, rocks and minerals, ecology, topography, weather, biodiversity, and water quality. Nature trails and butterfly gardens were built. Over time, the focus of place-based work has expanded to include local geography and history as a meaningful context to teach science, mathematics, social studies and language arts."

Improvements: reduction from 1998 to 2002 in number of East Feliciana students rated unsatisfactory in LEAP 21 scores.

English language -- 14.2% --from 32.6 to 18.4
and arts

Mathematics -- 19.1% -- from 44.0 to 24.9

Science -- 8.1% -- from 27.5 to 19.4

Social studies -- 11.3% -- from 39.4 to 28.1

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