Rochester’s rivers, lake, and waste: teaching local environmental history using water case studies

Abstract

In a non-majors upper-level undergraduate environmental history course focused on the Laurentian Great Lakes, students researched and wrote micro-histories of the Rochester, NY area. Many were focused on water—quantity, quality, recreation, and pollution. This article briefly explains the approach and its potential applications to other interdisciplinary water courses. Then five of the original micro-water history cases are presented. It concludes with the lessons learned as a class and for teaching local water history in the future incorporating the previous class’ findings.