Exercise #1: Local Environmental History
Instructions
For Exercise #1, you will bring environmental concepts home by looking at your neighbourhood’s environmental history.
- Using the submission form, post a photo of your area (Google Street View if you do not want to show your home) on this interactive map and explain the ecological history of this space, as per this example.
- Write a 700 to 1100 word of the ecological history of this physical environment, including where applicable: pre-contact use and settlement; wildlife past and present; early settlement and resource extraction; invasive species; urban development; stewardship actions (urban stormwater retention systems; community gardens; composting facilities).
- You must show where you found your information, either through footnote citations or with links embedded in the text, or a combination of both.
- The writing can be informal, as per the Exercise 1 Sample (you may even use first person, which definitely will not fly with your historiography and major essay projects!) but correct spelling and grammar are expected.
- In most cases, given the readily available information online, this exercise need not take more than 6–8 hours to complete. It is meant to help you think historically about your environment—to read it through an ecological lens. If you live in a rural area or small town, you may think that there is less to say than what you read in the sample based on a Vancouver neighbourhood, but this is not the case. The environmental history will be very different, and you might focus far more on, say, the settlement period of the late nineteenth century, or the implications of the introduction of cattle or irrigation and less on events of the 1960s and 70s.
- Please note, you should write and edit your submission in a separate file then copy and paste it into the submission box. Once submitted to the HIST 3991 trubox site, you will not be able to edit your post.
Are you a student of HIST 3991? Click here to add a submission to this assignment.
Submissions
Latest Posts
North Vancouver
July 12, 2022 By: Sarah Greene
My family and I live in the Mount Seymour/Parkgate neighbourhood of North Vancouver, BC. North Vancouver is on the traditional territories of three Coast Salish peoples: The Squamish, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh nations. My neighbourhood is on the traditional territory of the Tsleil-Waututh people, a distinct Coast Salish nation whose territory includes the land and water around Burrard Inlet1. Archaeological sites in the area indicate that the Tsleil-Waututh people have been here for thousands of years. Winter villages included large multi-family longhouses in sheltered bays, and during the spring and summer families would spread out into smaller hunting, fishing and gathering…
Nlaka’pamux Territory: Then VS. Now.
June 30, 2022 By: Zoë
The Nlaka’pamux territory, otherwise known as the Nicola Valley, is a diverse semi aired pocket desert covered in wild grasses and pine trees. Nlaka’pamux people have lived on these lands for thousands of years, hunting wild game such as moose and grouse and gathering medicinal plants. Although still diverse and beautiful, the Nicola Valley is full of families relying on forestry, ranching, mill and mining work. All of this activity has changed the face of the Nicola Valley with the over grazing of natural grasslands, clear cuts and open pit mines being only a few pieces of evidence of change….
Anqing, Anhui Province, China
June 24, 2022 By: Lezi Yan
I used to live in Anqing, one of the tourist gems of China’s Anhui province, Anqing is an elegant port on the mighty Yangtze river with a long history. In 2015, the city was rated as a national historical and cultural city, a national garden city, an excellent tourist city in China and one of the “Most Internationally Influential Cities” in China by the China Association of Cities (2010). The name “Anqing” dates from the 17th year of the Southern Song Dynasty (1147) when the name “Deqing Jun” was changed to “Anqing Jun” as the military name, with the meaning…
Anqing, Anhui Province, China
June 24, 2022 By: Lezi Yan
I used to live in Anqing, one of the tourist gems of China’s Anhui province, Anqing is an elegant port on the mighty Yangtze river with a long history. In 2015, the city was rated as a national historical and cultural city, a national garden city, an excellent tourist city in China and one of the “Most Internationally Influential Cities” in China by the China Association of Cities (2010). The name “Anqing” dates from the 17th year of the Southern Song Dynasty (1147) when the name “Deqing Jun” was changed to “Anqing Jun” as the military name, with the meaning…
Abbotsford
June 12, 2022 By: Brett
I live, work, learn, and play on the traditional and unceded land of the Stó:lō people, which has two Nations in it, the Semá:th First Nation and Mathxwí First Nation. This area has a grand history and has seen much environmental change in the past few centuries, as well as the past few months. The two nations’ land overlapped, that is where my current home is located, but it is more in the area of old Abbotsford and the Semá:th nation so that is what this paper will focus on. The land looks and is used much differently now than…