Resource Spotlight: Environmental History
Resources for Earth Day and everyday!
Happy Earth Day & Happy Environmental History Week!
Environmental history is the often inherently interdisciplinary study of how human beings have interacted with and shaped the natural world around us over time. It grew largely out of the conservation and environmental movements in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s, and it continues to grow and adapt to respond to present-day climate concerns and science.
Teaching an environmental history lesson is a great way to bring students’ knowledge of current events and the world around them into a historical context. Check out the list of teaching resources, recent scholarship, and picture books for some ideas!
Teaching Resources:
Current Context: Earth Day 2024
There is no denying that our Earth is straining under the impact of human activities. It is also true that there are more people than ever committed to improving the situation. This new resource explores Earth Day in the context of climate change, including reasons to be hopeful. It also features a classroom activity and questions for discussion.
This first-grade inquiry set explores the ways in which people chose to harvest the redwoods throughout the nineteenth century. The set’s investigative question — What have been the costs (consequences) of the decisions of people in the past?— can be used to guide students through the images to understand what some of the costs are of choosing to log or preserve redwoods.
This primary source set for fourth-grade students shows how water has been a valuable and exploited, and eventually highly-managed, natural resource in the state of California. Students respond to the inquiry question: “Why was water important to the growth of California?”
This tenth-grade inquiry set explores the problems caused by climate change through a case study of the impact of sea level rise on the Pacific Island nation of Tuvalu. The environmental effects of rising water on Tuvalu and other small Pacific Island nations are already evident. The set examines the combined effects of postcolonial poverty and sea level rise on developing nations and the various ways that national governments and international organizations are working to address sea level rise.
Rights, Responsibilities, and Climate Change
This primary source set for twelfth-grade students uses documents from the court case Juliana v. United States, in which twenty-one youth plaintiffs are currently suing the federal government for its role in contributing to climate change. Students use the documents to examine the rights and responsibilities of citizens and the federal government during the era of climate change, with a comparison to a similar case in the Netherlands.
Current Context: Youth Vs. Climate Change
This Current Context resource from 2020 gives further background on Juliana v. United States, while also examining environmental legislation and civic engagement during the 1960s and ‘70s – a period of time when citizen action and legislation successfully addressed several pressing environmental issues. Excerpted primary sources from this era, as well as from the Juliana v. United States case, offer students an opportunity to consider the role that the three government branches and citizens all play in ensuring a livable environment — as well as a chance to consider how youth voices can be heard, as well.
Recent Scholarship:
A Few Acres of Ice: Environment, Sovereignty, and “Granduer” in the French Antarctic, Janet Martin-Nielson (Forthcoming, 2024)
From Cornell University Press:
“Martin-Nielsen details how France has worked (and at times not worked) to perform sovereignty in Terre Adélie, from the territory's integration into France's colonial empire to France's integral role in making the environment matter in Antarctic politics. As a result, A Few Acres of Ice sheds light on how Terre Adeìlie has altered human perceptions and been constructed by human agency since (and even before) its discovery.”
When the Bombs Stopped: The Legacy of War in Rural Cambodia, Erin Lin (2024)
From Princeton University Press:
“Lin argues that the half-century legacy of American bombs has sedimented the war into the layers of contemporary Cambodian society. Policies aimed at developing or modernizing Cambodia, whether economic liberalization or authoritarian consolidation, must be realized in an environment haunted by the violence of the past. As the stories Lin captures show, the bombing served as a critical juncture in these farming villages, marking the place in time where development stopped.”
Oil Beach: How Toxic Infrastructure Threatens Life in the Ports of Los Angeles and Beyond, Christina Dunbar-Hester (2023)
From the University of Chicago Press:
“San Pedro Bay, which contains the contiguous Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, is a significant site for petroleum shipping and refining as well as one of the largest container shipping ports in the world—some forty percent of containerized imports to the United States pass through this so-called America’s Port. It is also ecologically rich. Built atop a land- and waterscape of vital importance to wildlife, the heavily industrialized Los Angeles Harbor contains estuarial wetlands, the LA River mouth, and a marine ecology where colder and warmer Pacific Ocean waters meet. In this compelling interdisciplinary investigation, award-winning author Christina Dunbar-Hester explores the complex relationships among commerce, empire, environment, and the nonhuman life forms of San Pedro Bay over the last fifty years—a period coinciding with the era of modern environmental regulation in the United States.”
Seeding Empire: American Philanthrocapital and the Roots of the Green Revolution in Africa, Aaron Eddens (2024)
From the University of California Press:
“In Seeding Empire, Aaron Eddens rewrites an enduring story about the past—and future—of global agriculture. Eddens connects today's efforts to cultivate a "Green Revolution in Africa" to a history of American projects that introduced capitalist agriculture across the Global South. Expansive in scope, this book draws on archival records of the earliest Green Revolution projects in Mexico in the 1940s and 1950s, as well as interviews at development institutions and agribusinesses working to deliver genetically modified crops to millions of small-scale farmers across Africa.”
The Toxic Ship: The Voyage of the Khian Sea and the Global Waste Trade, Simone M. Müller (2023)
From the University of Washington Press:
“Simone M. Müller uses the Khian Sea's voyage as a lens to elucidate the global trade in hazardous waste—the movement of material ranging from outdated consumer products and pesticides to barges filled with all sorts of toxic discards—from the 1970s to the present day, exploring the story's international nodes and detailing the downside of environmental conscientiousness among industrial nations as waste is pushed outward. Müller also highlights the significance of the trip's start in Philadelphia, a city with a significant African American population. The geographical origins shed light on environmental racism within the United States in the context of the global story of environmental justice. Activism in response to the ship's journey set an important precedent, and this book brings together the many voices that shaped the international trade in hazardous waste.”
Fir and Empire: The Transformation of Forests in Early Modern China, Ian M. Miller (2024)
From the University of Washington Press:
“The disappearance of China’s naturally occurring forests is one of the most significant environmental shifts in the country’s history, one often blamed on imperial demand for lumber. China’s early modern forest history is typically viewed as a centuries-long process of environmental decline, culminating in a nineteenth-century social and ecological crisis. Pushing back against this narrative of deforestation, Ian Miller charts the rise of timber plantations between about 1000 and 1700, when natural forests were replaced with anthropogenic ones. Miller demonstrates that this form of forest management generally rested on private ownership under relatively distant state oversight and taxation. He further draws on in-depth case studies of shipbuilding and imperial logging to argue that this novel landscape was not created through simple extractive pressures, but by attempts to incorporate institutional and ecological complexity into a unified imperial state.”
Picture Books (#KatesBookClub):
The Brilliant Deep, by Kate Messner.
Highlights the conservation efforts of Ken Nedimyer, founder of the Coral Restoration Foundation. Strong message that one person can make a difference in a big way.
The Day the River Caught Fire: How the Cuyahoga River Exploded and Ignited the Earth Day Movement, by Barry Wittenstein.
True story of how the Cuyahoga River, long neglected and site of repeated waste dumping, ignited in June 1969. With the help of national media attention, President Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency—leading to the Clean Water and Clean Air Acts—and the first Earth Day was celebrated. It was a celebration, it was a protest, and it was the beginning of a movement to save our planet. Students can learn more about the Cuyahoga Valley National Park here.
One Turtle’s Last Straw: The Real-Life Rescue That Sparked a Sea Change by Elisa Boxer.
True story of how one small turtle and kids all over the country sparked an environmental movement. Even one straw can hurt critters in the ocean. Great example of civic action, especially for primary students. The US Postal Service will release a new series of stamps featuring endangered sea turtles in May of 2024. It might be a good activity for students to see how stamps are created.
Kate Sessions: Mother of Balboa Park by Joy Raab.
Kate Sessions loved the outdoors, especially trees. She studied science at UC Berkeley and later planted trees throughout San Diego. California story.
Water Day by Margarita Engle.
In a Cuban village, the water required to bathe, do laundry, cook, hydrate, and flush the toilet does not come from taps. In this village, water is delivered by the water man, who arrives in a truck or with a horse and wagon and a big tank. From there, the water is dispersed and stored in personal tanks for use by individual families. The brilliant blue of the water tank stands out in the painted cut-paper illustrations. Great way to gently introduce the global water crisis.
The Water Lady, The by Alice B. McGinty.
A Navajo boy named Cody finds that his family's barrels of water are empty. Dry. A few miles away, Darlene Arviso drives a school bus and picks up students for school. After dropping them off, she drives her big yellow tanker truck to the water tower, fills it with three thousand gallons of water, and returns to the reservation, bringing water to Cody's family, and many, many others. True story of a Native American woman who continuously gives back to her community and celebrates her people. So many connections for classrooms - running electricity, clean water for all, water conservation, structure of Navajo reservation, etc. Students can also read more about Darlene Arviso here. Teachers can provide background information about the water crisis in Indigenous communities here. Indigenous artist.