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Explorations
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American Environmental History
Resource Management:
Local and Historical Perspectives
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This unit connects historical perspectives of nature and the environment with contemporary issues of local resource management. It draws on the American Memory collection, The Evolution of the Conservation Movement, 1850-1920, and the primary and secondary sources of an academic library. Students will examine photographs, paintings and text to understand the contexts of America's concern for the environment. Students will produce a paper on a contemporary topic of local concern that incorporates historical perspectives with current issues. Using archival and digital collections, students will begin to understand the continuity and complexity of Americans' relationship with the land on a national and local level.
Objectives |
Students will develop a variety of broad-based skills:
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Research using a variety of resources: digital, print, and material.
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Analyze nineteenth-century scientific, legislative, and narrative nonfiction writing.
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Connect past perceptions and presentations of nature in America to the policies and concerns of present-day resource management in their local landscape.
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Analysis and visual literacy.
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Time Required |
Ten weeks (one quarter)
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An Important Note |
To be successful, this lesson requires the cooperative efforts of a high-school level teacher and an archivist or librarian throughout. The latter will need to be prepared to welcome high-school age students into the research facilities of an academic institution or historical society, and will need to be contacted well in advance of the lesson period.
This lesson is designed for a schedule with 90-minute class periods; use for another type of schedule may require modification. |
Recommended Grade Level |
11 – 12. |
Curriculum Fit |
American literature, environmental history, American history, western/Montana history, American studies.
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Standards |
McREL 4th Edition Standards & Benchmarks
Geography
Standard 1. Understand the characteristics and uses of maps, globes, and other geographic tools and technologies
Standard 4. Understands the physical and human characteristics of place
Standard 17. Understands how geography is used to interpret the past
Standard 18. Understands global development and environmental issues
Historical Understanding
Standard 2. Understands the historical perspective
Language Arts
Standard 4. Gathers and uses information for research purposes
Standard 6. Uses reading skills and strategies to understand and interpret a variety of literary texts
Standard 7. Uses reading skills and strategies to understand and interpret a variety of informational texts
Standard 9. Uses viewing skills and strategies to understand and interpret visual media |
Resources Used |
Digital
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The Evolution of the Conservation Movement, 1850-1920
- United States National Archives
Library-
Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library, The University of Montana--Missoula
Print
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John A. Baden and Donald Snow, editors. The Next West. Washington, D.C. : Island Press, 1997.
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Berry, Wendall. "The Work of Local Culture." What Are People For? San Francisco: North Point Press, 1990.
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Ralph Waldo Emerson. Excerpts from "from Nature," "The American Scholar," "Self-Reliance," and "Fate." Adventures in American Literature. Heritage Edition, Harcourt Brace Jovanovitch, Publishers, 1980.
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Nash, Roderick Frazier. American Environmentalism: Readings in Conservation History. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1990.
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Schullery, Paul. Searching for Yellowstone: Ecology and Wonder in the Last Wilderness. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997.
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Henry David Thoreau. Excerpts from "Walden: Where I Lived and What I Lived For," "The Pond," and "Conclusion." Adventures in American Literature. Heritage Edition, Harcourt Brace Jovanovitch, Publishers, 1980.
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West, Elliott. The Way to the West: Essays on the Central Plains. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1995.
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Worster, Donald. The Wealth of Nature: Environmental History and the Ecological Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
Video
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Landscape: A New Story of Possibility in the Changing American West. Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, 1996.
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The Wild West: Searchers and Wayfarers. Narrated by Jack Lemon. A Rattlesnake Production in association with Telepictures Productions. Warner Home Video, 1993.
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Materials and Preparation: Worksheets |
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Procedure
Week One
Students read the Wendell Berry article, "The Work of Local Culture". Conduct an overview and discussion of the American environmental movement. Discuss issues of changing landscapes over time. What is our relationship to the land? Introduce the "city" versus the "mountain" ideology so students can recognize extremes and discover and place each author's ideology.
Conduct a field trip and journal experience at a local nature site.
Writing assignment: Describe a memory of an experience in or with nature. Using all of your senses, describe where this memory occurred as well as the accompanying emotions or sensations that the experience elicited. Write a personal essay or journal on your experience in or with nature. See the assignment, Worksheet: Nature Experience.
Week Two
Readings from Emerson, Thoreau, and Muir selected from Adventures in American Literature; use Worksheet: Questions for Discussion: Thoreau, Emerson, Muir.
Students search The Evolution of the Conservation Movement, 1850-1920 to create a portfolio of ideas about early conservation issues and photos of early conservation philosophers.
Week Three
Share readings and discuss the early history of the environmental movement. Confront the challenges of reading nonfiction analytically.
- What is our early relationship to the land?
- What are significant philosophies that emerge from the conservation movement?
- Philosophically, how did early settlers view America?
- Can you discover any comparisons between your narrative in nature and those of early American authors?
The class reads Chapter 4, "Stories", in The Way to the West and discuss how our narratives create the images we believe and pass on to our children. "Each part of the West is what it is because of the stories we have told about it." They also view the Landscape and the Wild West videos.
Students read the following essays from American Environmentalism: Readings in Conservation History:
- Thoreau, "The Value of Wilderness"
- George Perkins Marsh, "Human Responsibility for the Land"
- Frederick Law Olmstead, "The Value and Care of Parks"
- John F. Reiger, "The Sportsman Factor in Early Conservation"
- Carl Schurz, "The Beginnings of Federal Concern"
- John Wesley Powell, "The Reclamation Idea"
- John Muir, "A Voice for Wildernes"
- Gifford Pinchot, "The Birth of Conservation"
- Robert Marshall, "Wilderness"
Working in groups, students use Study notes on Conservation writers to identify major themes and early philosophies related to the four topic areas. In the same topic groups, students read the following contemporary essays:
- "Ecological Holocaust" (Chapter 5) in Searching for Yellowstone.
- Forestry-Chapter 2 "New Forestry in the Next West" by Rocky Barker in The Next West.
- Land-Chapter 8 "Private, Public, Personal: Americans and the Land." in The Next West.
- Water-Chapter 8 "John Wesley Powell and the Unmaking of the West" by Karl Hess, Jr. in The Wealth of Nature.
Students search The Evolution of the Conservation Movement, 1850-1920 for a chronology of events, issues, legislation, and images related to their group topic, using Worksheet: Chronology of the Conservation Movement to direct their efforts. This collection will be added to the portfolio they began above.
Week Four
Students complete an essay assignment:
Chronologically detail the historical context of your topic.
- When did this topic become of interest to Americans?
- What were the first issues or ideas about this topic?
- Does early legislation reflect those concerns and issues?
- How did these issues and topics change over time?
- What are the contemporary issues related to the topic?
- What are the most recent legislative efforts?
Students view pre-selected images, Early Images of the
Western United States, from American Memory and the National Archives. They
complete a viewing questionnaire, Worksheet: Images of
the West and discover how the early images of the West set in motion an environmental
movement that shaped the West.
Students will select individual research paper topics related to the group they selected earlier. Categories for research and topics are:
Wildlife
- Predator eradication & re-introduction
- Bird preservation
- Hunters as conservationists
Water
- Water rights in the West
- Acquifer depletion
- stream and riparian management
Land
- Wilderness corridors
- Local land control
- Rural living
- Campground and recreational use
Forestry
- Logging practices and methods
- Fire management and policy
- Multiple use of national forests and parks
Week Five
Students visit the library or archives and under the direction of the archivist gather both secondary and primary sources for their research project. Students learn search techniques and experience the differences between on-line research and archival research with primary source documents through an introduction to the online catalog, the difference between keyword and subject searching, a workshop with primary sources, and a Treasure Hunt for different kinds of sources in the library. See the Library and Archives Plan of Work for the first day.
Students return to the classroom to process the research information they gathered at the library. They are introduced to research skills: cards, finding aids, bibliography, APA format for citations, and outlines.
Week Six
Students return to the library or archives for one day of free searching. Students are expected to have materials copied or ready to check out by the end of the day.
Week Seven
Arrange time in the computer lab and individual meetings with students to manage their research and composition of the research paper.
Week Eight
Presentation of research papers in class.
Week Nine
Students create a final digital portfolio that includes items from the American Memory collections, the nature essay, and the final paper.
Week Ten
Preparation for evening community presentation of final project. Complete student evaluation.
Evaluation and Extension
Students fill out evaluations at the end of each class session to provide feedback on lesson content and presentation. Their final papers will demonstrate their ability to make some sophisticated connections between the past and present.
The lesson can be extended to include:
- students researching and writing management plans for issues of local concern;
- students interviewing community members and experts in environmental management, creating their own primary sources as part of their research; and
- extensive involvement of local resource managers as presenters and student mentors.
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