Exercise #3: Connecting Past and Present
Instructions
For Exercise #3, you will make connections between what you have learned in the course about the past and what is happening today through contemporary media.
- Find two recent media items thematically connected in some way to two of the three topics covered in Unit 3: conservation, parks, and urbanization. For each of these, post a paragraph of three to five sentences, connecting the media story to what you learned, or were challenged to consider, from the resources in Unit 3. Provide the web link to the article in each post.
- These postings may be informal but should be grammatically correct. You should be respectful of other students’ opinions, but that does not mean you must agree with their ideas.
- Post your response by clicking ‘Add Submission’ below.
- Then post two separate comments responding to any other student’s posts.
- 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
Connecting Past and Present
March 28, 2025 By: Alyx Mcintosh
The Seattle Times article Trump moves to increase logging in national forests (Friedman, 2015) details Donald Trumps plans to ramp up logging operations across the united states. Accordingly, in hopes of increasing domestic lumber supply, Trump is trying to find ways to bypass and streamline environmental regulations and endangered species protection, in order to reduce production costs. This reminded me of the Hetch Hetchy project, which pursued the construction of a dam in the Yosemite National Park. In both instances, Government officials were pursuing protected land in order to cut costs for each respective issue (water shortage and cost of…
Connecting Past and Present
March 21, 2025 By: Jennifer R. Paulsen
The first piece of media is connected to the topic of conservation. The article, published in the New York Times on March 1, 2025, illustrates the political nature of conservation through its coverage of massive protests that were organized in response to US president Donald’s Trumps gutting of the National Parks Service. The political history of conservation discussed by Ted Steinberg in Down to Earth is repeating itself. Just as Theodore Roosevelt weighed economic growth against environmental conservation, Trump is pitting cash against conservation. The notable difference is that Roosevelt had a proverbial devil (Pinchot) and an angel (Muir) on his shoulders while…
Connecting Past and Present
January 16, 2025 By: Emmanuel Emmanuel
Connecting Past and Present Media Item 1: “Vancouver’s Fight Against Invasive Species” (CBC News, 2024) This article discusses Vancouver’s initiatives to control invasive plant species, linking to historical issues of ecological imperialism. Alfred Crosby’s concept explains how European settlers introduced non-native species that outcompeted local flora (Crosby, 1988). Vancouver’s current management efforts highlight the ongoing struggle to mitigate these historical ecological disruptions. Media Item 2: “Urban Green Spaces: A Solution to Heatwaves” (The Globe and Mail, 2024) The article emphasizes the role of urban parks in combating rising temperatures. This connects to conservation themes discussed in the course, illustrating how…
Exercise 3
January 14, 2025 By: Riley Greer
Riley Greer T00669280 Article 1: https://research.ebsco.com/c/amz5ui/viewer/html/gxghomytwf National parks in the United States have begun using a conservation practice known as managed relocation, in which a threatened species is moved beyond the natural ranges of its habitat. The article demonstrates this with the relocation of Bull Trout in Glacier National Park in Montana and Joshua trees in Joshua Tree National Park. These practices bring the conservation section of Unit 3 to mind. While it does not touch on conservation in the same way as the readings did (maintaining efficiency of harvest), it does remind of the issues brought up in the…
Exercise #3
January 11, 2025 By: Robert (Borealis) Dowe- Douglas
Media One: Building a Dam Comes full Circle with “History of WAC Bennet Dam The history of the WAC Bennet Dam is a struggle between the demands of Urbanization and the pressures for and against conservation. This video stuck my interest because not only is the WAC Bennet Dam a feature of my home region, the Peace River Region, but the same story and issues are replaying themselves out all over again with the construction of what is known as Site C dam just outside the city of Fort St. John, again in my home region and in fact down…