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
March 8, 2023 By: Yang Ni
Political, economic, and social factors and changes in lifestyle and behaviour influence my family environment history. My family ties back to mainland China, where we followed and obeyed Chinese traditions. Family is always unified, where it is the responsibility of each family member to act in good faith with regard to each other hence enhancing team works towards achieving the family’s goals. My family is highly inclined to nature through the concept of “feng shui,” which aligns with natural energy to enhance prosperity and health. Our culture values family unit where the eldest male member is the head of the…
exercise 2
March 5, 2023 By: Jiayi Han
My grandparents were born during the War of Liberation in China. They were very young at the end of the war and the founding of New China. In other words, they were lucky to have only experienced the final war in their infancy and survived, and began to live a peaceful life in the 1950s. Of course, this does not mean that their childhood and youth life are smooth. In New China, which has experienced the anti-fascist war and the war of liberation, all economic construction must be developed from scratch. My grandparents have been farming for generations like the…
Family Environmental History
March 5, 2023 By: Jason Senna
I am a Caucasian middle-class male whose immediate family does not relate to their environment much, if at all. We value our environment as we live on a mountain and have a forest in our backyard. I showcase how much I appreciate my environment by teaching the children I supervise how impactful our actions are to our environment and how privileged we are to live in said environment. My elders’ relationships with their environments differ from those I wish to have in the future by not sustainably preserving their resources or the vigour of their domains. Measures I take to…
Exercise #2 Family Environmental History
February 6, 2023 By: Nahian Adiba
Bangladesh, my country, is very rich in family traditions, culture, relationships, and bonding. We tend to have a very informal and strong bond among all our family members and relatives. My grandparents, the oldest generation, were born in small-town villages. Bangladesh was a part of Pakistan at the time. Prior to 1971, the overall state of Bangladesh was very different from what it is today. The whole country was under immense pressure and deprivation from the Pakistani government. Even though it was one of Pakistan’s fastest-growing regions at the time, there weren’t many resources available from the government. Agriculture has…
Family Environmental History
January 17, 2023 By: Siyuan Ge
In my family’s history, each generation starting from my grandparents has become increasingly distant from land and farming. This shift has paralleled China’s economic development and urbanization. My grandparents grew up in rural villages in Northern China and experienced the Great Chinese Famine. They valued their land and worked hard to preserve it. However, as China’s economy grew and more people moved to cities, my parents and I had less connection to farming and the land. Our move to Canada represents a further disconnection from our agricultural roots. All of my grandparents were born in the late 1940s and early…