Urbanization

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 * Reviewed by Elizabeth Anderson**

This module was designed to bring an ecological awareness into traditional subjects such as the history of urbanization. It is at a high school level, bringing in environmental issues to history, specifically the history of cities. It is less of a strict module than a suggestion of various activities that high school history teachers can use to teach the history of environmental movements and motivations behind them. The first portion briefly discusses environmental events and movements in the context of US history. Following that is a list of activities that teachers can do with their students. Scattered throughout the module are lists of possible resources for teachers.

Personally, I feel like bringing environmental issues and arguments into as many areas of education as possible would really help children and young adults to think about the world in a more environmental context. There are three exercises in this module: "Transportation in Urban Areas", "Industrialization", and "Muckrakers". The "Transportation in Urban Areas" activity has students research what types of transportation were used in their town one hundred years ago. This activity goes into a lot of depth, but I feel like a lot of the activity is merely busy work. By the time a student has reached high school, I think that he or she should have a good enough understanding of history to realize that transportation options have changed over the years. That being said, the "town hall" part of the activity would likely help students to think critically about the issues that people faced in the past when they made decisions about transportation options and the factors that should be taken into account when making a decision today. The "Industrialization" exercise asks some really good critical thinking questions about industrialization and the effects of industrialization, such as "What is progress?". Writing a newspaper article instead of an essay would also be a fun change for many students. The third exercise, "Muckrakers", has students pick a topic related to the effects of industrialization and urbanization at the turn of the century and write an article about it, explaining the problem, what causes it, and what can be done to change the problem. Again, such an imaginative assignment would capture students' imagination and teach them more about history and historical problems.

The module was created by the [|Environmental Literacy Council]. I did some research to find out who funds this council, and what sort of organization it is. On the [|site], it states the group is partially funded by the Department of Education. However, I found other [|information] that states that the organization is also funded by corporate sponsors. Personally, I feel like the information provided in this module is pretty accurate, but I do believe that looking at where an organization is getting its funding from as well as any other possible connections to other organizations or people.

I feel like the information provided in this module would be helpful for designing EcoEd workshops here at RPI, but I feel like the three activities presented would be too time-consuming for a single workshop. I think that we can gain good ideas from both the material presented and from the activities. Creative assignments in general will help the students learn, as well as make the activity more fun. One thing that should definitely be done is to relate the lessons from history to problems happening right now. For example, students could find a problem happening right now and write an article about it. Having students think of current events similar to what happened in the past would also expand learning about those problems.