STANDARD COMPETENCIES:

 I. Analyze the relationships between people and their environment over time.

 II.     Demonstrate comprehension of how to view environmental history in its constant context of general American history.

 III.     Apply environmental history to help evaluate present and future issues and circumstances, including those that might arise in a relevant job.

 IV.      Analyze the roles of cultural, economic, and gender diversity in environmental history.

 V.     Explain how environmental history may inform policy makers.

  VI. Four general goals integrate history with workplace skills:

       A.      Acquire information from many sources

       B.      Break complex and multiple sources of information down into parts to create clearer understanding

       C.      Understand the impact of time and space on perspective

       D.      Develop narrative structures and arguments based on evidence

 VII.     Throughout the course, students should be introduced to course content, practice using course content, and demonstrate they can:

       A.        Describe how peoples, groups, cultures, and institutions covered in this course change over time

       B.        Understand the events covered in the course in historical context and recognize how social, cultural, gender, race, religion, nationality and other identities affect historical perspective

       C.        Communicate orally and in writing about the subject of the course and select and apply contemporary forms of technology to solve problems and compile information

       D.        Use different resources for historical research, including libraries, databases, bibliographies and archives

       E.         Analyze secondary sources and recognize differences in historical interpretation

       F.         Identify types of primary sources, the point of view and purpose of their author or creator

       G.        Create substantive writing samples which employ critical analysis of primary and secondary sources, and document those sources correctly

       H.        Construct knowledge in the discipline and synthesize historical narratives and timelines from primary and secondary sources, maps, and/or artifacts and critically analyze, interpret and evaluate many different points of view to construct historical arguments.

 TOPICAL OUTLINE:

 

 I.      Environmental History as a Field of Study

 II.     Native American Ecology and European Contact

 III.    Puritans in the Wilderness

 IV.     Planters Mine the Soil

 V.      The Ecology of Yeoman Farmers

 VI.     The American Environment Captures the American Mind

 VII.    The Ecology of the Cotton South

 VIII.   Western Mining Booms and Busts

 IX.     Great Plains Frontier Ecology

 X       Conserving the Passing Frontier

 XI.     Preserving the Wilderness

 XII.    Progressives and the Environment

 XIII.   The Origins of Human Ecology

 XIV.    Conservation Becomes Environmentalism

 XV.     Modern Environmentalism -- To the Moon