Abstract
This reflective essay describes one fourth-grade class's efforts to engage in place-based inquiry regarding food access in response to COVID-19 pandemic recovery efforts. Through this reporting, the author presents the following set of orientations that recognize the inescapable role that place has in teaching and learning and that positions educational settings as sites of resistance, hope, and transformation: (1) building upon diversity of experiences and interests; (2) bridging past to present realities and local to global forces; and (3) encouraging pausing and sense of uncomfortabilty as precursors for action. In such a way, these orientations for place-based study support ongoing calls of utilizing this pivotal moment - the transition and recovery of the COVID-19 pandemic - to reimagine teaching, learning, and schooling in ways that resist matrices of oppression and create possible, liberatory futures in society.
