SCIS315
ESSAY QUESTIONS
Choose ONE essay question from the list. When answering your selected Essay question, provide examples from the course and readings, as well as external sources, to support your answer. Your essay should be 2000-2500 words, and is worth 35% of your final grade. (Make sure you write the number of the essay question you answer in your paper.)
Q1:
What is environmental history, and how can it help us understand the motives for environmental change in Aotearoa New Zealand? Select TWO of the following topics to write on:
new species introductions and ecological and social impacts
science, agricultural development and environmental change
human impact on environments and environmental impacts on humans
colonisation and environmental change
Source: Modules 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 Reading lists
Q2:
Assess the strengths and weaknesses of a ‘history of science’ approach in Aotearoa New Zealand. What other alternative models are there available, and why are they useful? Use examples to support your answer.
Source: Modules 1 and 2 Reading lists
Q3:
“Māori had little or no environmental impacts in Aotearoa.” Critically interrogate this statement.
Source: Module 3 Reading list
Q4:
“New Zealand currently spends hundreds of millions of dollars on fighting introduced pest species, yet nineteenth-century settlers spent corresponding amounts on bringing in species from overseas.”
Account for the motives of nineteenth-century acclimatisation and describe some of the environmental impacts then and now of those introductions. You may choose three or four species to illustrate your answer.
Source: Module 2 Reading list
Q5:
What was New Zealand’s grasslands revolution and its environmental impact, and to what extent did scientific ideas help further it?
Source: Module 3 Reading list
Q6:
To what extent are New Zealand’s current environmental problems a legacy of nineteenth- and twentieth-century scientific agriculture?
Source: Module 3 Reading list
Q7:
What role did natural history play in colonisation? Discuss with reference to New Zealand, Australia and India.
Source: Module 2 Reading list
Q8:
What role have museums played in science and exchanges of scientific knowledge in the 1800s and early 1900s?
Source: Module 4 Reading list
Q9:
Discuss the nature of knowledge exchange between Europeans and non-Europeans with reference to botany, natural history specimens and environmental knowledge.
Source: Modules 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 Reading lists
Q10:
What role did the state play in ONE of the following areas? Select ONE of the following areas to write about:
mental health care in Aotearoa New Zealand from 1840 to 1970.
indigenous health in Aotearoa New Zealand and India from 1840 to 1970.
public health in Aotearoa New Zealand and India from 1840 to 1970.
Source: Module 5 Reading list