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.