Historical Ecology

During the Fall semester of 2010 Dr. Sharyn Jones taught a Historical Ecology course. In this class students were encouraged to discuss historical and contemporary issues of cultural ecology.

Students were given the option of completing a term paper or a project that related to the topics discussed during the class. Some worked in groups. The projects followed the theme of bringing more awareness to environmental issues. During the process of these projects students maintained public blogs, so that their instructor and classmates, as well as the general public could follow their progress.



Amanda Harper, Kalyn Abrams, Mallory Messersmith, Justin Sims, Harry Clark carried their trash around with them for a week and then weighed and averaged amongst themselves, and then they compared their data with national averages.

Marissa T Bakhshian’s goal was to promote environmental awareness within her own household. She and her roommates worked to reduce the amount of waste that they produced, along with the amount of water and electricity that they used.

Anne Sorrell, Christel Carlisle, Courtney Andrews planted small gardens, utilizing only natural cultivation methods in their homes with the objective promoting sustainable living.

Ashley Nielson adopted a pescetarian diet. She gave up eating meat, with the exception of seafood. Her blog contains information about her personal experiences with giving up meat, as well as information about how the meat industry affects the environment.

Anna McCown, Lindsay Whiteaker, and Jake Delisle have been working to create a historical ecology wikiproject in an effort to bring together other researchers who are willing to work together to provide useful information about the topic of historical ecology that can be presented to the public through wikipedia.

Also during the class some student proposed ideas for promoting environmental education, that may be utilized in the future as a part of ANTHRO-TEACH. Included in these ideas were a proposal for a sort ecology based mentoring program and a lesson plan intended to promote environmental awareness for young children.