As teacher educators, we discuss the ways place-based inquiry can be incorporated into content area literacy instruction with preservice secondary teachers to strengthen an understanding of discipline-specific applications for content area literacy. We begin with a discussion of content area literacy as a situated experience and examine the ways place-based writing/inquiry can create authentic content area learning. The remainder of the manuscript describes specific classroom examples and techniques involved in place-based content area inquiry that we feel are essential in order to successfully implement place-based content area literacy instruction. (Contains 1 table and 2 figures.)