Cultural Geology in A Geology Class (2024)

As I have been working through the materials for this outcome I have started to think more about how geology impacts culture. I am not completely sure how I want to approach this in the classroom.  I do have an assignment that looks at Puyallup oral histories about Mt. Rainer. I’d like to expand this to other oral histories about geological formations or events and have students compare and contrast them with dominant culture depictions, but I think this will better suite the Power, Privilege, Inequity outcome of explaining different types of knowledge.

For the difference outcome I have a couple of assignment ideas:

1. I would like to develop an assignment that incorporates the ideas of cultural geography. This is a field that looks at how geography, such as topography and land features, influence how we live and the cultures that develop. Geography is closely linked to the geology of an area. Ideally it’d be something that allows the students to assess how the physical environment that they grew up in or currently live in impacts the culture and then have another aspect where they look at other cultures and their geology.

2. I have assignments on natural resources, their environmental impacts, and inequity surrounding their mining. Again, I think this is better suited to the Power, Privilege, Inequity outcome. I would like to develop a related assignment for this outcome that looks more at how the natural distribution of natural resources has influenced and in many cases created power, privilege, and inequity. For example tin deposits were crucial in the ancient world as it was needed to make bronze. This drove international trade just as oil does today. This can be expanded to look at new resources that have become more influential today due to electronics such as lithium. A component of the assignment could be looking at how the US and Brazil are handling finding large lithium deposits. In the US some populations have the ability to push back on mining (others don’t – that is covered in the mining assignment). In Brazil the government is launching “Lithium Valley” and is inviting foreign investment.

Klein-Markman, S. (2023, August 2). Global Race for Lithium Lands in Rural Brazil. Home. Retrieved May 17, 2024, from https://nacla.org/global-race-lithium-brazil

Semuels, A., & Cough, K. (2023, July 27). Gem Hunters Found the Lithium America Needs. Maine Won’t Let Them Dig It Up. Climate – Energy. Retrieved May 17, 2024, from https://time.com/6294818/lithium-mining-us-maine/

Wonderopolis (n.d.). How Does Earth’s Surface Affect Culture? Wonder of the Day #1357. Retrieved May 17, 2024, from https://wonderopolis.org/wonder/how-does-earths-surface-affect-culture