International Journal of Educational Policy Research and Review Vol.7 (1), pp. 16-26 January, 2020 Available online at https://www.journalissues.org/IJEPRR/ https://doi.org/10.15739/IJEPRR.20.003 Copyright © 2020 Author(s) retain the copyright of this article ISSN 2360-7076 Original Research Article Development of area-based learning innovation through Miang culture to promote green citizenship for social studies teachers in the Upper Northern Thailand Received 28 October, 2019 Revised 22 December, 2019 Accepted 27 December, 2019 Published 9 January, 2020 Charin Mangkhang* 1 and Grit Piriyatachagul 1 1 Faculty of Education,Chiang Mai University, Thailand. *Corresponding Author E-mail: charin.mangkhang@cmu.ac.th Tel.: +66 818 851700 The purpose of this study was to examine the area-based learning management and also demonstrate the innovation model of area-based learning management, to promote green citizenship in upper northern Thailand. The qualitative research methodology was applied with data collection from an in-depth interview and focus-group discussion in which the researcher integrated past experiences gained from working in social studies and field trip with learning activities to design those activities by mainly emphasizing learners to shift their conception under the educational paradigm together with the significant target of promoting green citizenship. The research findings reveal that using Miang, a native plant of communities in the upper northern Thailand, as an activity-based learning together with empowerment of people familiar with the context of Miang culture in their own communities shall lead to a sustainable learning. This captioned paradigm focused on the participatory learning process in which learners could create their knowledge with the area-based learning instrument through 4 units of Miang culture activity-based learning to bring about the “creative learning innovation” as the pedagogical teaching knowledge for future development of global citizenship. Keywords: Area-based learning innovation, Miang culture, green citizenship, social studies. INTRODUCTION Area-based learning is considered an innovation supporting education to achieve progress in an efficient manner, so as to reduce educational inequality and develop educational quality. It can also be seen as an integration giving importance to curriculum management plans and learning experience that give chances to learners for responding to demands on economy, society, culture, natural resources and environment, especially in areas adhering to identity maintenance, with value of culture being their roots. Meanwhile, it can fulfill other social requirements especially in creating equality and equity to communities (Masatienwong et al., 2012). Besides, area-based learning management can develop citizen participation (Ngai and Koehn, 2010; Ritchie et al., 2015) by means of the learning of children of disadvantaged groups that are driven to be marginalized learners (Long and Avery, 2017; Donovan, 2016). However, area-based learning inspects how uniqueness in local context of learners has any effect on the learning experience of learners (Long and Avery, 2017). The most area-based learning highlighted interest at learning components of learners which include academic results