How can I include it into my curriculum?
How can I include it into my curriculum?
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To frame how we can weave it in, I will use the five key principles outlined by Riley and Kitson in TH 194:
New approaches – Use scholarship and go beyond what is normally taught in the curriculum. For example, highlighting the ‘Environmental’ lens in addition to the traditional Political/Social/Economic (PEES)
Zooming in out and out – Zoom out…you can go WAAAY back in time, to 40,000 years ago. Use cave art (Lascaux/Chauvet) to show how humans depicted animals in art, deifying them, and this transferred across to religious practices. This reveals how early humans saw themselves as a part of nature. Then moving into the present where we are often seen as apart from it, subduing it (quotation above). Zoom in on events e.g. little ice age, or stories, e.g. the potato, the nutmeg, that can be embedded into existed schemes of learning.
Extending the range of sources – Use temperature bar charts, CO2 emissions, soil records. Gapminder – A useful source to examine changing environmental patterns over time. earth :: a global map of wind, weather, and ocean conditions – a useful overview of the wind and weather from archive's over years
Connecting past, present and future – Connect the past with what we are seeing today. For example, if you are teaching America in the 1920s, discuss the impact of Henry Ford’s business work with Brazil and the Amazon and the impact it has had on discussions around protection of the Amazon today. Avoid a doom narrative, you can see below an example of ‘positive futures’ guided reading for Y9 on the regeneration of the battlefields following WW1.
Creative, dialogic teaching strategies – Think of engaging enquiry questions that lend themselves to the environmental lens yet do not deviate from the curriculum, for example ‘Did the industrial revolution help people more than it harmed the environment?’. This links in to the traditional focus on consequences of the IR, but brings an environmental focus more into view.
Where could I spotlight it?
Where could I spotlight it?
Below is your standard Y7 curriculum overview. I have highlighted in italics potential avenues for environmental histories to be woven in.
Y7 - EXAMPLE
Pre 1066 study - British
Investigate how early (British?) societies adapted to and modified their natural environments, including agricultural practices and deforestation.
The Norman Conquest
Changing landscape - construction of castles and the introduction of new agricultural techniques.
Life in a medieval village
Frame the medieval topic with a lesson on the Little Ice Age – this overview of climactic conditions feed into the rest of the topic
Medieval Baghdad
Environmental innovations in medieval Baghdad, including irrigation systems and urban planning that supported a large population.
The Black Death after 1348
LIA led to weakened immune systems contributing to increased mortality. Changes in land use and the impact on wildlife populations – research is showing the climate was impacted by the decreased population
The nature of medieval kingship in England (Richard II and Henry IV)
Forest laws and the management of royal lands. Questions over who owns the land? ‘Ownership’ of nature.
The nature of medieval kingship in Africa (Mansa Musa)
The use of natural resources and the development of trade routes.
The Renaissance in Europe
The impact of using science to categorise and record nature. Link to our changing perspective of nature
The reign of Henry VIII
The dissolution of the monasteries and its impact on land use.
The birth of Empire – Early Modern Britons looking out.
Exploitation of natural resources and the introduction of new species to different ecosystems. Use of ‘little stories’ to teach this
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