Welcome to our new Teaching and Learning page
From Nancy Cushing, University of Newcastle:
In November 2019, I was one of the convenors of the AANZEHN Australasian Workshop on Teaching Environmental History, along with Andrea Gaynor, Emily O’Gorman and Jan Oostoek. Generously hosted by the State Library of NSW and with support from the International Consortium for Environmental History Organizations and the University of Western Australia, the workshop brought together 30 participants to discuss who we teach, how we teach and how we might develop our craft. Emily O’Gorman wrote a report on the workshop and Andrea Gaynor provided an account of it in her chapter: “Environmental History: Teaching in a Time of Crisis”, Adele Nye and Jennifer Clark, eds., Teaching History for the Contemporary World, Springer, 2021.
Of several intended outcomes, one was that we establish a teaching page on the AANZEHN website where we could share teaching materials and resources and continue conversations about teaching. It took a while, but I am pleased to be able to make a start on this page now, with guides to seven environmental history and environmental humanities courses. We hope that they will inform and inspire as you develop or revise your own environmental history courses, modules and lectures.
If you have a course guide or other teaching resources you would like to share, or another suggestion for a topic we could treat here, please contact nancy.cushing@newcastle.edu.au.
Environmental history and humanities courses taught in Australia and further afield
Here we share a range of syllabuses and other materials used in recent years in Australian universities in teaching environmental history and humanities. We offer them in the hopes of sustaining and growing teaching and learning in environmental history.
- Andrea Gaynor, “Environmental History“, first year course, University of Western Australia.
- Andrea Gaynor, “Themes in History and Historiography: Environmental History and Environmental Humanities“, honours course, University of Western Australia.
- Emily O’Gorman, “Environment and Society“, second year course, Macquarie University.
- Jarrod Hore, “Australian Environmental History“, second year course, Macquarie University.
- Nancy Cushing, “A Sunburnt Country: Australian Environmental History“, second year course, University of Newcastle.
- Budhaditya Das, “Environmental History“, masters topic, Ambedkar University.
Teaching and Learning resources
Chomiak, Kristina, David Connell, Devin Cooley, Hannah Saxena, Sydney Van Winkle and Kaitlin Stack Whitney, “Rochester’s Rivers, Lake, and Waste: Teaching local environmental history using water case studies”, Water History 12, 3 (2020): 345-359.
Gaynor, Andrea, “Environmental History: Teaching in a Time of Crisis”, Adele Nye and Jennifer Clark, eds., Teaching History for the Contemporary World, Springer, 2021.
Green, Heather. “Teaching Environmental History Field Trips”, Andrea Eidinger and Krista McCracken, eds, Beyond The Lecture: Innovations in Teaching Canadian History (Open Access).
Jones, Karen, “Putting the Past in its Place: Teaching environmental history in the age of the Anthropocene”, 27 November 2020. Teaching Portal, Historical Transactions.
Langston, Nancy, The Syllabus Project: Diversifying the Environmental History Syllabus.
McGregor, Heather E., Jackson Pind and Sara Karn, “A ‘wicked problem’: Rethinking history education in the Anthropocene“, Rethinking History, 25, 4 (2021), 483-507.
Melillo, Edward D., “Beginning in the Belly, Ending in the Atmosphere: An Approach to teaching Global Environmental History”, World History Bulletin 29, 2 (2013), 30 – 36.
Multiple articles on teaching Environmental History, Network in Canadian History & Environment (NICHE), https://niche-canada.org/?s=teaching.
Sprouse, Lucas A. and Lisa Brady, “Teaching EH: Global Perspectives on Wilderness”, Environmental History, https://environmentalhistory.net/teaching-eh-global-perspectives-on-wilderness/ and see additional teaching resources on this site.
Teaching Environmental History in the US and World History Surveys: Overview of Topics and Resources, American Historical Association.
Wakild, Emily and Michelle K. Berry, A Primer for Teaching Environmental History: Ten Design Principles. Duke University Press, 2018.