Student interview for Place-Based WAC/WID writing instruction in Geography, clip 6 of 11

Abstract

Brief excerpt from interview: Since this class is specifically kind of more like political ecology and people in relationship to the environment, I think when hearing specific news stories you kind of take more of a critical approach to when you hear it... I think one of the most important things I learned was kind of how nature is pretty subjective in terms of how we define [it]. Everyone's definition of nature is different, even though we use the word a lot and so I think it's really important when you hear stories, for example conservation practices, and we tend to think of conservation practices in a really positive light and I don't think that's a bad thing, but it's also important to critically analyze how these conservation practices [might affect others]. If you're setting aside a piece of forest, are there people living there? Then you might be like making them homeless and they won't have their land, so I think a lot of times since right now we're into the whole sustainability-conservation thing, I think it's important, but I think it's also important to take a critical look at it and not just feel like oh 'conservation great, not conservation bad.' I think there's good stuff and bad stuff about both and you really need to look in order to make better policies and make sure that people don't get disenfranchised.