Marta Brooks and Jodi Allison-Bunnell
These lessons introduce students to historical perspectives of nature and the environment through exploration of the American Memory collections, other digital resources, readings, and writing exercises. Students will examine materials in a variety of formats to understand the contexts of America's concern for the environment.
The short lesson requires one ninety-minute or two fifty-minute class periods engages students in the American Memory Maps Collections; Conservation Collection and Photographs from the World Trade Commission Collection. Other digital collections are included in the exercise. The purpose of this exercise is to help students reognize that image played an extensive role in the creation of the American West. Photographer William Henry Jackson and artist Thomas Moran were preeminent in the creation of the National Park's System in America, particularly Yellowstone National Park. Students will explore and analyze images of the area and they will be introduced to legislative records and maps. Students will then produce an essay describing the relationship between early images of the American West and subsequent ideologies and stories of the West.
The full lesson requires ten weeks. Students use digital collections and those of an academic library or historical society to get a full perspective on historical and literary sources that connect local history with larger national trends. This lesson includes extensive reading from prominent environmental historians and literary figures. The suggested bibliography includes an historical perspective from Thomas Marsh, Thoreau and Emerson to the present. Students produce a research paper addressing the history of a local environmental issue. The lesson may be extended by requiring students to perform their own historical research in the community.
Contact:
Marta
Brooks, St. Ignatius High School
Jodi
Allison-Bunnell, The University of Montana--Missoula
June 1999