Environmental History of New England

Environmental History of New England is a Natural Science class taught by Charlene D'Avanzo.

Course Description
New England has a fascinating environmental history. Glaciers sculpted the landscape over 10,000 years ago leaving behind evidence of huge lakes and the weight of mile-high ice. Humans also have left their mark by clearing the land of trees for agriculture and lighting fires to improve game hunting. In this class students will learn about "changes in the land" on different time scales through field trips, group projects, and discussions. One project will focus on the Connecticut River, where we can use historic maps and fieldwork to look at rapid (over decades) evolution of the floodplain. For another we will use evidence of agriculture over a few hundred years on Hampshire's 800 acres. This course is a great introduction to the local environment and how to do ecological and environmental fieldwork.

Learning Goals

 * Project-based
 * Presenting
 * Quantitative
 * Reading
 * Writing