contents
General Online Resources
Syllabus Collections
Secondary Source Collections
Primary Source Collections
Teaching Units
Museum Exhibits
Beyond Paper
Syllabus Sharing
Assignment Sharing
Notes on Teaching Climate/Environmental History
Podcast/Module Topics
Syllabus Collections
Secondary Source Collections
Primary Source Collections
Teaching Units
Museum Exhibits
Beyond Paper
Syllabus Sharing
Assignment Sharing
Notes on Teaching Climate/Environmental History
Podcast/Module Topics
general resources
syllabus collections
- Environment & Society maintains a collection of Syllabi in Environment and Society
- ASEH has a small collection of syllabi on sustainability here.
- The Climate History Network has a small collection of syllabi & other teaching resources on climate history here
- International Commission on the History of Oceanography: Ocean History syllabi here
- Cornell University, environmental justice courses series vision and examples
- Teaching Environmental Justice project, large collection of teaching materials and discussion of philosophy of teaching EJ organized by thematic area (e.g., Indigenous Environmentalism, Ecofeminism)
- Teaching Global Environmental History, a resource blog compiling efforts of scholars across geographies and periods.
- The Climate Justice Syllabus Project, examples and teaching resources
- The Environmental Justice Working Group at Stanford, examples and guidance on connecting scholarship to student interest in policy and advocacy work beyond the classroom
- The Diversifying the Environmental History Syllabus project, a Zotero compilation of sources emphasizing women and people of color in teaching environmental studies
- Radical Hope Syllabus, based on a Rachel Carson Center conference
- Sample syllabi compiled by the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment
- UC-CSU NXTERRA, a set of resources on “transformative education for climate action” based in California public higher education institutions
secondary source collections
- The Syllabus Project Zotero Site and an explainer from Niche
- The Climate History Network Bibliographical Project: Zotero Site
Primary source collections
- The Climate Files A Project of the Climate Investigation Center that archives industry and lobbyist documents that illustrate the history of organized climate denial. Mostly uncovered from lawsuits but they also encourage industry whistleblowers to send them donations.
- The Evolution of the Conservation Movement The Library of Congress site contains a timeline of events in the conservation movement (from 1850-1920) along with links to relevant documents.
- Resource Guide for American Environmental History (SNHU) contains a wide variety of primary source collections [note: we could just list these separately].
- University at Buffalo Love Canal Collections The University Archives contains documents related to the Love Canal disaster from the papers of the Ecumenical Task Force, one of the groups involved.
- Defending the Arctic Refuge Finis Dunaway has a site dedicated to his book of the same title which includes a timeline of events as well as some important sources from the different perspectives involved.
teaching units
- ASEH has two teaching units, one on Better Living Through Chemistry and one on The Intermountain West
Museum exhibits
- Environment & Society has a wide variety of virtual exhibitions on topics in the environmental humanities
syllabus Sharing
Link to Syllabus
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Class Description
IS 308 will explore the methods and questions involved in doing environmental history—the study of the interactions between people, non-human animals, and the material world in historical context. In this class, we will be doing a series of topical case studies from multiple places and time periods. Students will complete two short essays and presentations on a primary and secondary source related to one of these case studies. Students will also write a longer paper on an environmental history topic of their choosing. Topics will include conservation and sustainability, animal studies, environmental movements, climate change, histories of environmental science, and many more.
HIS 332 will explore the methods and questions involved in doing environmental history—the study of the interactions between people, non-human animals, and the material world in historical context. In this class, we will be doing a series of topical case studies from multiple places and time periods. Students will complete two short essays and presentations on a primary and secondary source related to one of these case studies. Students will also write a longer paper on an environmental history topic of their choosing. Topics will include conservation and sustainability, animal studies, environmental movements, climate change, histories of environmental science, and many more.
HIS 498B/670B
(How) has the ongoing, global crisis of climate change forced all historians to reconsider the questions, methods, and theories that shape their research about the past? Must historians—no matter what period, place, people, or subject is their focus—think and write differently in the age of the so-called Anthropocene? Our collective readings will be wide-ranging and will mainly focus on, but not be limited to, works written at the intersection of environmental humanities and science studies, which account for some of the most prominent responses to these questions so far. We will consider how the abiding material changes across the world resulting from human activities since roughly the 18th century (expansion of agrarian land uses, unbridled resource extraction, global trade, uncontainable consumer and industrial waste, increasing reliance on fossil fuels, and much more) have had disparate direct and indirect social, political, economic, and cultural consequences for different communities around the world. Students will have the opportunity to craft and complete a research paper that addresses the relationship between climate and history in some form. Examples not limited to: a place-based climate history research paper using primary and secondary sources that is focused on a particular city or region; a research essay that reframes a putatively non-climate-related topic in terms of its connection to it; a critical review of existing scholarship in any historical subfield that examines the extent to which specialists have engaged in the climate crisis; a proposal for a podcast series, website, museum exhibit or other public-facing history resource about some aspect of the history of climate change. |
Author/Contributor
Keith Pluymers
Keith Pluymers
Anya Zilberstein
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assignment sharing
Type of Assignment
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Description/Links
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Author/Contributor
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Written Research Project (3 parts) on Histories of Climate Solutions
In Class/Group Assignment
Brainstorming Changes Needed to Address Problems Developing Lesson Plans
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Emily Pauley
Emily Pauley
Keith Pluymers
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Notes on how to teach Climate/Environmental issues
Teaching The Climate Crisis |
"Teaching 'Historians and the Climate Crisis' in a graduate level seminar"
A presentation at the 2022 ASEH Conference By Anya Zilberstein |
podcast/module topics
MAssachusetts Vs. epa Case |
Submitted by Ellen Spears
The Massachusetts case decided issues of the authority and scope of the EPA. |