A sense of place carries both meaning and attachment to the places people visit often. Place-based education (PBE) can promote learning by integrating meaningful places into the learning curriculum. Place-based teaching has gained momentum in the last 20 years within the K-12 environmental science community, but is less commonly practiced at the college level. This study was developed to test if PBE in a higher education setting can increase engagement. We developed a short survey with items to assess place attachment and course engagement. For place attachment, students are asked to rate ten statements (e.g. USC/Columbia/SC is very special to me) on a 5-point Likert scale from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree. For course engagement, students are asked to rate eighteen statements (e.g. raising my hand in class) to assess four types of engagement (emotional, performance, skill and participation) on a 4-point Likert scale from Not at All Characteristic to Very Characteristic. Students are also asked to respond to five questions that include whether they live on or off campus and how long they've lived in SC. We embedded this survey at the beginning and end of two introductory geoscience courses; one of these has a PBE focus (environmental science) while the other (physical geology) does not. Survey data shows that utilizing place attachment through PBE is correlated to student engagement (p<0.05) and is an effective method in maintaining engagement throughout the semester. Data also indicates an increase in participation and performance engagement as compared to non-PBE. Place attachment remained consistently high over the semester and was not dependent on in-state status or where they live. Place-based education shows that incorporating local issues into the curriculum is a great way to help students learn and engage with material in higher education.