Directions:
Please pick only one of the essay prompts. Do not answer to all the prompts.
These are open-book, multi-paragraph, long, and not-timed essays. Although there is no minimum required words count, you must write multi-paragraph well-structured, well-thought essays that are analytical, directly answer the questions and deliver the message(s) that you are asked to deliver. Read the uploaded rubric carefully.
- You can use the textbook, presentation, articles, films, and the Internet sources. If you are using the Internet, just say according to xyz and provide the link. No Wikipedia please.
- The long essays cover all the subjects and materials from the beginning of the semester until the time of the exam.
- In the Long Essay weeks, no reading is assigned so that you will have time to focus on all previous subjects and allocate your time to write the essay.
To avoid plagiarism read the academic integrity section in the syllabus carefully. All the answers will be evaluated by the Turnitin app for plagiarism.
Essay Prompts:
Please pick only one of the essay prompts. Do not answer to all the prompts.
Essay Prompt 1: Federal Land Policy and Environmental Transformation
Analyze how federal land policies between the late eighteenth century and the late nineteenth century shaped both American expansion and environmental change. In your essay, discuss how laws such as the Land Ordinance of 1785, the Preemption Act, the Homestead Act, and the Desert Lands Act encouraged settlement, private property ownership, and resource exploitation. Evaluate the environmental and social consequences of these policies for Native Americans, western landscapes, and agricultural development.
Hint: Consider how ideas about “freehold property” and an “empire for liberty” encouraged expansion. Discuss how settlement policies transformed forests, grasslands, water systems, and Indigenous lands in both the East and the arid West.
Essay Prompt 2: Conservation vs. Preservation in American Environmental Thought
Compare and contrast the conservation and preservation movements in the United States during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. How did each movement define nature differently, and what solutions did they propose for environmental problems caused by industrialization and expansion? In your response, analyze the roles of Theodore Roosevelt, the Forest Reserve Act, the Sierra Club, women’s organizations, and the creation of national parks.
Hint: Be sure to explain the difference between conservation (efficient use of resources) and preservation (protecting wilderness for aesthetic or spiritual reasons). You may also discuss the cultural meaning of wilderness and the influence of class, gender, and masculinity in preservationist ideas.
Essay Prompt 3: Water, Irrigation, and the Arid West
Evaluate how environmental conditions in the American West shaped federal and state water policies during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In your essay, analyze the differences between eastern riparian water law and western appropriation systems such as the Colorado Doctrine and California Doctrine. Explain how irrigation projects and the Reclamation Act of 1902 transformed western settlement, agriculture, and ecosystems.
Hint: Focus on the challenges posed by arid environments west of the 98th meridian. Consider how water law reflected ideas about development, private property, and resource control in the West.
Essay Prompt 4: Population Growth, Resource Limits, and Environmental Anxiety
Discuss how concerns about population growth and resource scarcity shaped environmental thinking from the late eighteenth century to the modern era. In your essay, examine the ideas of Thomas Malthus, Paul Ehrlich, and the authors of The Limits to Growth. Evaluate whether technological innovation, industrialization, and the Green Revolution solved or merely delayed environmental crises related to food, energy, and climate change.
Hint:
You may discuss concepts such as Malthusian catastrophe, carrying capacity, peak oil, climate change, limiting factors, and demographic transition. Be sure to connect historical debates about population and resources to contemporary environmental challenges.