Field trips for Hist/Environ 223: Trashed! A History of Garbage in the Modern World

Field trips for Hist/Environ 223: Trashed! A History of Garbage in the Modern World

Grant:
Instructional Development Fund (IDF)
Academic Year:
2014 - 2015 (June 1, 2014 through May 31, 2015)
Funding Requested:
$456.00
Project Dates:
-
Applicant(s):
hechtg
akberg
Overview of the Project:
Trashed! explores the history of waste since the 19th century. We will trace how garbage – the actual stuff that humans discard – has changed along with methods of production, distribution and consumption. We will think about waste politics and garbage culture. We will examine how waste shapes societies, how it is managed, what roles it plays in different economies, how it integrates into people's everyday lives, and how it fits into their value systems. Most importantly, we explore how trash connects and divides people in different parts of an expanding and constricting world. In order to make these connections tangible, this course includes active explorative learning in particular two field trips to a waste processing facility and a materials recovery facility. It is in support of these field trips that we apply for funding.
Final Report Fields
Project Objectives:

--to get students to think about waste management outside of the classroom and enable them to think about current practices in light of their historical knowledge, the development of waste technologies over the past 100 years and the political discourses that accompanied those developments. --give students a sense of the amount and kinds of waste in our own society in order to compare with the historical precursors -- allow students to see and examine the processes through which waste “disappears” as processes that involve labor, technology, and a particular kind of rhetoric.

Project Achievements:

--students critically questioned official narratives presented to them by waste management PR personnel. --helped students conceptualize their own final research projects --allowed students to see that historical knowledge acquired in academic contexts matters in the here and now and allows them to understand and evaluate contemporary problems more critically. --addressed with the departments and the college’s emphasis on experiential learning

Continuation:
--the project is concluded (it was a field trip) but has lastingly shaped pedagogical approach of both instructors
Dissemination:
--the students discussed the field trip on the course blog.
Advice to your Colleagues:
- Field trips are worth it. They are a lot of work but they create community among the students and they underscore that what we do in the classroom extends beyond. As such they are truly rewarding and enriching for students and instructors.
PRINTER VERSION
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