Academy of Science and Entrepreneurship Students Explore, Honor, and Share Their 'Sense of Place'
2025 videos mark ten years of the collaborative series
by Rachel Bahr, ASE English Teacher
Every year, the Sense of Place project takes on a life of its own, with each new group of students bringing fresh perspectives to what has now become a ten-year tradition. It hadn’t occurred to me until recently that this is the project’s tenth anniversary — and realizing that makes me reflect on just how much Bloomington’s landscape has evolved since the project first began in 2016. Rhino’s Youth Center has been demolished, Switchyard Park now stretches across the site of the old rail yard, The Game Preserve relocated from Fountain Square Mall, the B-Line Trail has expanded, and that oddly charming curbside building on Rogers and Country Club has disappeared, replaced by a gas station.
One thing that hasn’t changed, though, is what students take away from the project: the joy of exploring, the habit of wondering, and a deeper understanding of what it truly means to have a sense of place. As in previous years, we began by watching Breaking Away, which sparked bursts of recognition — fingers pointing at the screen and excited conversations about familiar streets and landmarks. We also took a field trip to Lower Cascades Park and a driving tour of Bloomington’s most iconic spots, tracing connections to FDR’s New Deal along the way.
This morning, we read Walter Dean Myers’s poem “Harlem” as an introduction to our next unit on the Harlem Renaissance. As students encountered street names, jazz sounds from night clubs, and the smell of food wafting out of kitchen windows, they began to notice a familiar thread. Myers, they realized, was doing what they had also just done — exploring, honoring, and sharing a sense of place.
Place connects us — across generations, neighborhoods, and time itself. It reminds us that while landscapes may change, the human desire to belong, to tell stories, and to root ourselves in the world endures.
