NATH8252, 3 CEUs
Class night and time: Wednesdays, 1-3 pm
Class meetings: September 18-December 4 (no class October 9, November 27)
Lectures via Zoom; 11/20 and 12/4 hybrid with in-person option at Woodend
Field trip dates: Sunday, October 6; Sunday, October 27; Sunday, November 17 (all start 10 am)
Instructor: Eliza Cava
Members $390; nonmembers $440
This course examines the development of natural resources conservation and preservation thought and policy in the United States from the pre-colonial era through the early twenty-first century. The class considers how land and natural resources have been fundamental agents in shaping the lives of the country’s inhabitants and, in parallel, how Americans’ perceptions of the environment and its resources have shaped the natural world. Some of the topics studied include varying cultural views of nature and wilderness; U.S. land dispersal policies; the creation of National Parks, Forests, and Wildlife Refuges; principal conservation policies from 1900-1964; the environmental and ecology movements from 1960-2000s; and the intersection of conservation with the climate and environmental justice movements of the 1990s-2020s. Students will learn about famous conservation “heroes” as both professionals and people, whose complicated, and often racist, views shaped patterns and divisions in the early conservation movements that continue to echo today. Students will explore the historical origins and development of a conservation topic of great interest to them with a written paper and class presentation. Field trips will visit sites of local conservation initiatives from different eras. REGISTER

Required books: 

Down To Earth: Nature’s Role in American History (3^rd or 4^th editions)
Author: Ted Steinberg
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 978-0-19-979739-4 or 978-0-1908644-2

Preserving the Nation: The Conservation and Environmental Movements, 1870-2000
Author: Thomas R. Wellock
Publisher: Harlan Davidson, Inc.
ISBN: 978-0-88295-254-3

A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There
Author: Aldo Leopold
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0-19-5-5305-2

Silent Spring
Author: Rachel Carson
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co
ISBN: 0-618-25305-x

Recommended: 

The Rise of the American Conservation Movement: Power, Privilege, and Environmental Protection
Author: Dorcetta Taylor
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 9780822361817

Braiding Sweetgrass
Author: Robin Wall Kimmerer
Publisher: Milkweed Editions