A Working Definition of Place-based Education:
Place-based education provides youth and adults, teachers and students with opportunities to connect with their communities and public lands through hands-on, real world learning experiences on community-based projects.

Rigorous evaluation is essential to ensure that programs are achieving their intended goals. In 2002, several New England organizations formed the Place-based Education Evaluation Collaborative in order to professionally evaluate each of their four individual place-based education programs and to identify successful characteristics that span all of the programs. Although distinct, the programs including "A Forest for Every Classroom"—share goals of enhancing the connections between communities and schools, cultivating motivation and skills for citizenship and civic engagement, and building social capital for more successful, innovative, and resilient communities. This evaluation partnership is also laying the foundation for research into the effectiveness of place-based education models.