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
Family Environmental History
July 14, 2025 By: Kai Maekawa
My family’s environmental history stretches across countries, connecting distant places like Vancouver Island, Canada, and Niigata, Japan. By reflecting on the environments where my grandparents, parents, and I have lived, I aim to illustrate how our identities, livelihoods, and values have been shaped by our relationship with nature. My Canadian grandfather grew up on Vancouver Island, an area significantly changed by forestry. His own father emigrated from Denmark and contributed directly to Canada’s growth by helping build the Pan-Canadian railway, which demanded extensive logging and reshaped local forests dramatically. Later, my grandfather became a carpenter, relying indirectly on the region’s…
From the Rolling Hills to the Flatlands
June 21, 2025 By: Sunia Khan
When I think about my relationship with the environment, it’s hard not to see it as a story of contrasts. My mother grew up in Huye, Rwanda, in the green hills of East Africa, where the land shaped people’s daily routines, their food, and their way of life. Now, I live in The Hague, in a flat, planned Dutch suburb, surrounded by canals, storm drains, and smooth bike paths. The differences between these environments are huge, but I’ve come to see connections between them, too. My maternal grandparents lived just outside Huye, in the Southern Province of Rwanda. They were…
Family Environmental History
June 19, 2025 By: Simran Kamboj
I spent my entire life in Surrey, British Columbia. I was born in Canada, but my father took me to India when I was about eight months old so my grandparents could raise and care for me. That was because my parents had to work and earn money in Canada, and they had no other choice because no one was willing to look after me while they were both at work. My grandparents came to Canada in the 2000s, and I came with them. When I came back with them, I was around three years old. My mother was born…
Family Environmental History
June 13, 2025 By: Bryce Feltrin
My environmental history begins on two coasts of Canada. On my father’s side, my grandparents arrived in the 1950s from Italy, settling in Port Alberni, a small town in the middle of Vancouver Island and on the way to Tofino. On my mother’s side, my grandfather was born in the Prairies, the son of settlers from England. My grandmother, of Scottish descent, was born and raised in East Vancouver. Each side of my family shows a different ecological story. The coastal rainforests of British Columbia, the dry grasslands of the Prairie provinces, and the urban ecosystems of the Lower Mainland….
My Family’s Multi-Generational Environmental History
June 1, 2025 By: Rashad
My family’s relationship with the environment has changed dramatically over just two generations. My grandparents were born in a rural village in northern Yemen, where the mountains shaped everything from how people built their homes, what they ate, how they moved through the world. They lived close to the land, not out of choice but necessity. My grandfather farmed terraced fields carved into steep hillsides, growing wheat, barley, and qat, while my grandmother kept goats and chickens. Water was scarce, so they built stone catchments to store rain and dug deep into the mountains for wells. Their lifestyle was minimalist…