Exercise #4: Documentary Reflection
Instructions
For your fourth Exercise assignment, you will make connections between the environmental movement in the recent past and today by considering what you are challenged to learn from documentarians of that movement.
- Find a current or recent report in the mainstream or alternative media of an environmental topic or issue in your local or wider region. As you read/ hear about the issue, consider where you stand on it. Identify your position and your thoughts.
- Use the documentaries in this course unit to reflect on the role that civil disobedience has played in the history of environmentalism, researching one other recent example to defend your answer to the question of whether it works to bring positive change.
Use your research in the mainstream and alternative media from Activity 1 of this unit for this exercise Post the media links and your analysis. Aim for a minimum of 300 words.
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
Excerise 4
September 6, 2026 By: Hailey Donaldson
An environmental issue that feels relevant to me is climate change and the increasing risk of wildfires in Kamloops. A recent article from The Tyee, “It’s Going to Happen Again”, discusses the 2021 wildfire in Kamloops and the need for being better prepared as extreme weather becomes more common. The article explains how the 2021 heat wave and wildfire created dangerous conditions for residence, enforced people in parts of Kamloops to prepare for evacuation. It also connects these events to the broader pattern of increasing climate related risks. This issue matters to me because Kamloops is a place where…
Documentary Reflection
August 28, 2026 By: Makena Stratton
For this exercise, I am focusing on the media about the AI data centre that is being built in Kamloops. Even though I am not currently living in that area, I have spent the last three years living there and heard a lot about it, and find it a very interesting topic. Firstly, looking at a CBC article, the AI data centre in Kamloops is one of six being built across BC, and this one will be located on the Thompson Rivers University campus. This article focuses on how useful the AI data centre will be and how it differs…
Exercise #4: Documentary Reflection
August 28, 2026 By: Lingling Hu
Issue: Urban Environmental Governance and Waste Incineration in Guangzhou, China. Part 1:Media Analysis Comparing the media coverage of the 2009 Panyu waste incinerator controversy reveals a stark contrast in narrative framing. Mainstream state coverage in China Daily emphasizes official statements on technological safety, municipal waste management urgency, and expert assurances that modern facilities carry minimal health risks (Qiu, 2009). Conversely, the alternative coverage provided by EJAtlas focuses on grassroots community mobilization, highlighting local fears of cancer-causing dioxins, high population density around proposed sites, and a lack of early public consultation ( “Panyu waste incineration project, Guangzhou”, 2021). My position aligns…
Documentary Reflection
August 17, 2026 By: Nicole Collette
A recent report from CBC News regarding the massive logging operations in Stanley Park due to a hemlock looper moth infestation highlights a deep environmental controversy in my local region. The Vancouver Park Board has removed thousands of dead and dying trees to manage public safety and wildfire risks, prompting legal pushback from community advocates who argue the cutting is excessive. In my view, addressing this devastating infestation purely as a localized logging problem misses the bigger picture. While public safety along main trails matters, this infestation is a direct symptom of climate change, where a lack of freezing winter…
Reflection and Exercise Submission
August 17, 2026 By: Nicole Collette
Completing these exercises provided an opportunity to connect my family history and my immediate Vancouver surroundings with the broader themes of environmental history. Before starting this course, I viewed my daily environment around Heather Street and West 16th Avenue through a purely modern lens and saw my family’s timeline as a simple collection of personal memories. However, learning how environmental historians read the past transformed my perspective. I now see both my local neighbourhood and my family’s multi-generational journey as part of a larger narrative of human expansion and ecological modification. If I were to expand the first two exercises…