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
Damnation/Planet Visionaries
August 17, 2023 By: Robin Arens
Media Item 1: Damnation by Patagonia Films URL: https://youtu.be/laTIbNVDQN8 Damnation discusses the negative effects of river damming on local ecology. While the influence of (hydroelectric) dams on the development of North American society cannot be understated, neither can its impact on North American ecology. This film is heavily biased towards preservation, but does an effective job of visualizing the negative consequences of disturbed river flows on not just the direct surroundings of the river, but the local environment as a whole. Media Item 2: Planet Visionaries: Revolutionizing How We Preserve the World Underwater URL: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/live-episode-revolutionizing-how-we-preserve-the/id1572495128?i=1000623128310 This podcast episode interviews…
News on Urbanization and Parks
August 8, 2023 By: Jared Daumont
https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/18/us/black-bear-euthanized-selfies-trnd/index.html This article describes the unfortunate event in which a young black bear was euthanized due to prolonged exposure to humans. This bear, roughly 2-3 years old, would often sit near a boat launch in an Oregon park and eat food handed to it by people passing by. After an extended period of interaction, police began receiving calls from other concerned visitors about a bear in the area. Unfortunately, since the bear had grown accustomed to humans, it was captured and killed. This relates to Unit 3’s ideas that parks, which are intended to preserve wildlife, are perhaps at…
Conservation of Atlantic Whitefish and Euthanization of Black Bear in BC Provincial Park
July 31, 2023 By: Clarissa Wight
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/nova-scotia-safe-space-atlantic-whitefish-bridgewater-tagged-1.6898144 Conservation efforts are being made to re-establish Atlantic whitefish into the environment after near extinction due to humans. A dam was made on the Petite Rivière to create a water reservoir for the Town of Bridgewater. The dam blocked the migration route for the fish that return from the ocean to spawn in freshwater rivers which has limited their abilities to reproduce. In the process of restoring their population, the number of Atlantic whitefish in captivity has surpassed the population in the wild. The situation of these fish parallels that of the bison that once roamed Yellowstone. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/french-beach-park-bear-1.6920498 In…
Exercise #3
July 30, 2023 By: Xinmao Huang
What is important to remember about China is the massive spate of urbanization and industrial development that has contributed to the immense loss of biodiversity and the homogenization of flora and fauna species within major urban areas. Nonetheless, I would argue there is a strong biocultural relationship that exists between humans and nature that is reflected in urban Chinese architecture and park construction. This aligns with both Gifford Pinchot’s utilitarian and John Muir’s conservationist vision that forms a “balanced” strategy for preserving declining green spaces. Article 1: Conservation Hou, Wei, Liang Zhai, and Ulrich Waiz. “Identification of Spatial Conservation and…
Course Connection to Conservation and Urbanization
July 27, 2023 By: Rosie Chandi
Course Connection to Conservation Conversation refers to preventing wasteful uses of natural resources that are available and often is mentioned in terms of wildlife, water, or exploitation. All three terms can be examined when researching Canada’s conversation movements, but I will talk about forest exploitation that we experience here. Forest exploitation in Canada can be described as destruction of forests for accrual of financial gain. Canada’s boreal forests represent the largest carbon storehouses and habitats for migration bird populations [1]. “Forests are an integral part of Canada’s geography, identity, and economy, [however], forests in southern Canada have experienced significant loss…