Notes From Debby Nicely on Work in Upper School History:

Thus far what I have done is really minimal, but it is enough of a start to show that this topic is one which can interest students very much and which can be presented in a way which is interesting and even fun and which can effectively involve approaches to the study of history which are part of my grand plan in teaching the discipline of history.

A few guidelines:

I do not want environmental history to seem to be a body of information which is separate from other elements of our course: it should appear to be information which is really essential to the whole big picture.

Perhaps even more so than with other types of information, the most effective route into an understanding of the history of environmental impacts and human interactions with them would seem to be examination of primary sources. That is because where one is dealing with comparatively newly discovered information, a direct testimony provides students with material which they must come to terms with in some way.

As one establishes specific records (stories) of human impacts on the environment in students' minds, one can invite students to extrapolate from them to make suppositions about other situations.

Some specific examples:

The Epic of Gilgamesh. The second "chapter" in this epic describes the hero in quest of fame. And the daring deed which he pursues is to be the first man to cut the great trees - which are guarded by a monster who must first be killed. This story is interpreted by J. Perlin in his book on the history of wood, titled The Forest Journey (1989). Associated evidence as to the importance of wood somewhat after this time can be found in the story of Wenamon's journey, an Egyptian document from about 1100 B.C.. which is excerpted in E. Weber's source collection, The Western Tradition, v. I.

The effects of land clearing to create farmland for cultivation are illustrated in the second hour of the four part video series done by David Attenborough with the support of IBM, THE FIRST EDEN (1987). He shows a city in North Africa and, later, one in Asia Minor where what once was the seaside quay is now miles from the water, silted up when the eroded soil was carried down river (as happened also where the Tigris and Euphrates flow into the Persian Gulf).

The impacts of cultivation of land for crops is discussed in Clive Ponting, A Green History of the World (1991). There is a very telling description of what happened in Mesopotamia here also.

Finally, Polybius, The Rise of the Roman Empire (Penguin, 1979), has some rather stirring accounts of ships built and sunk in the course of the first Punic war. Polybius is good reading for freshmen, and I have found it interesting as an aside to ask volunteers to try to estimate how many trees might have been used up in this process. This is a good example of how an environmental awareness can make a history student much more aware of the dynamics of warfare in general and is a useful example of how ignorance could lead one to misjudge what elements most affected the outcome.

As I said, this is the barest of beginnings. With more work on my part, I would hope to continue to fill in the picture.

Debby Nicely