Exercise #2: Family Environmental History
Instructions
For Exercise #2, you will bring the environmental concepts home by looking at your own and your family environmental history.
Our lives and present environments are products of history. Our parents and grandparents grew up in very different environments from those of today. In our study of environmental history, it is helpful to think about our families’ past environments and their meaning for us today.
- Write an informal essay, between 700 and 1100 words, reflecting on your personal environmental history going back to your grandparents, parents, and your own generation. See the Exercise 2 Samples for a guide to this exercise.
- In formulating your response, consider the environments in which they and you have lived. Where were they located? What natural resources sustained your families and their communities? To what extent were those environments “natural” or human-made, native, or exotic (that is, transformed by European or other non-native species)? How have your families helped to transform their environments? Does your own ethnic and class heritage or gender play a role in the way you and your family have related to and valued the environment? How did the relationships your grandparents and parents had with their environments differ from the ones you have had in the past and wish to have in the future?
- Post your response by clicking ‘Add Submission’ below.
- 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
My Family Environmental History
March 24, 2022 By: Christopher Anyadubalu
My grandparents were born and raised in small villages in Biafra land (Southeastern Nigeria) prior to the British amalgamation of the Northern and Southern Protectorates into what the English colonial masters named Nigeria. They were raised in natural native environment in line with the tradition and culture of the Igbo people. There were little contact with the Europeans. In other words, their environment was not exotic, and the impacts of European civilization have not yet taken deeper roots. They tied piece of rapper (clothe) just to cover their private parts. They were mainly subsistence farmers and small-scale animal husbandry. My…
Personal Environmental History
March 7, 2022 By: Elizabeth Beattie
To begin my personal environmental history, I would like to start with my grandparents on my mother’s side. My grandmother was born and raised in a small town in New York State, later spending several her young adult years in New York city until she met my grandfather. He was born and grew up in a small town in Wisconsin. Following this he spent 2 years in the navy and then went to university in urban Wisconsin, eventually moving to New York city where he met my grandmother. Most of my grandfather’s life was spent working in upper management of…
Exercise #2
February 27, 2022 By: TAORUI LIU
My ancestry hails from Fujian Province, China. My grandparents were born in the same province, though they moved to adjust to changes in their work assignments. According to their narrations, they met while my grandfather was working as a middle-level government administrator in Fujian. Even though my grandmother had attained a considerable level of education, she willfully chose to be a housewife. They stayed for several years without having any children. During this time, they would move around together from town to town. Some of the towns and cities they stayed in during this phase of their lives are Xiamen,…
Family Environmental History
February 26, 2022 By: Zhuorui Ye
My family is from Jinan, Shandong province in China, where my grandparents and parents were born and raised. I will focus on my grandparents and parents’ environmental history since I believe that their experience in China illustrates various issues that demonstrate their relationship with their past environment. Notably, the City of Jinan faces the Yellow River at the north and Mount Tai at the south.[1] The city has various natural landscapes and natural and artificial resources, which promote survival for the ecological inhabitants. Jinan is known as the city of springs (Quancheng) because it has more than 800 natural artesian…
Family Environmental History
February 10, 2022 By: Benjamin Carson
For this paper I will focus on my grandfather on my mom’s side as he left behind an autobiography. His early childhood was spent in Mossbank, Saskatchewan. His time there can be traced to when the region was opened to homesteaders in 1907 during the latter part of the Laurier boom.[1] By then the area had been cleared out of both First Nations and buffalo. The place names that greeted them were a testament of the ecological impact that had already occurred. For instance, Old Wives Lake owes its name to the Old Wives Massacre, when a Blackfoot tribe killed…