On October 10 and 11, 2008, the first ever Environmental Heritage Summit was held at the Keystone State Office Building in Harrisburg.

 

The StateMuseum of Pennsylvania, in collaboration with the Pennsylvania Heritage Society, convened a group of scholars and publichistory professionals as well as colleagues from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, the Pennsylvania Association ofEnvironmental Professionals, various state agencies, and institutions and organizations in Pennsylvania with broad interest in environmentalaffairs to consider broad themes and interpretive issues in Pennsylvania’s environmental history.

 

The following is a summary of a final report byPHMC project consultant and summit manager Linda Shopes. The entire report can be accessed on the PAEP website.

 

The goals of the summit were to:

 

-- Define a broad interpretative framework for environmental history initiatives under discussion at the State Museum.

 

-- Cultivate relationships with institutions around the state involved in environmental history and education

 

Twenty-five people participated in the summit, including PAEP Past President, Eric Buncher, and PAEP Environmental Heritage Committeemembers, Robert Hosking and Wayne Kober.

 

Other organizations participating in the summit included the John James Audubon Center, the Rachel Carson Homestead, the Department ofEnvironmental Protection, Slippery Rock University, Carnegie Mellon University, the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources,Powermill Nature Preserve, the National Museum of American History, and Bryn Mawr College.

 

The PAEP Board of Directors in partnership with The Karl Mason Family, Gannett Fleming, CHRS, Inc. and McCormick Taylor providedsubstantial funding support for organizing, conducting, and documenting the summit.

 

Ten major themes emerged from the summit as follows:

 

1. Environmental history is not environmentalist history, nor is it history of environmental politics or of environmental decline or even of what we

think of nature;

 

2. Environmental history is thus an interpretive enterprise, linking humanities, history, and science;

 

3. Interpretive programs, including exhibitions, should show the unintended consequences and counterintuitive results of past actions to use, control,or otherwise engage with the environment;

 

4. Historic perspective on the environment, or more accurately on human interaction with nature, is enormously important;

 

5. An historic perspective demands a focus on change over time and Pennsylvania’s past provides numerous significant examples of change in theenvironment as a result of human agency;

 

6. Two key elements in Pennsylvania’s environmental history are forests and waters; both demand close attention;

 

7. Even though the focus of all programming should appropriately be on Pennsylvania, interpretation needs to link what has happened in the state tothe region, the nation, and the world;

 

8. Given the urgency of current environmental issues, programming should aim to provoke audiences to make meaningful connections betweenhistory and nature, to see the world differently to care about and care for the environment in new ways;

 

9. Capitalize on the authenticity of museum collections-the much vaunted “real stuff” of museums; and

 

10. Finally, the participants urged the State Museum to enhance current exhibitions with an environmental history angle and to useenvironmental history as a theme on all future exhibition planning.

 

Among the many suggestions offered by the summit participants were:

 

1. Use the city as a lens to organize and explain forces driving environmental change in Pennsylvania;

 

2. The PHMC should link environmental history to its 2009 annual programming theme, “energy;”

 

3. Exploit the “gross out” factor of environmental history such as the history of sewage disposal, which could be titled, “Flush;”

 

4. Develop an environmental history map for schools;

 

5. Develop cooperative programming that gets people out of the museum and into nature;

 

6. Connect programs with the Department of Education curriculum standards for the environment and ecology;

 

7. Cultivate the State Museum as a forum for discussing environmental issues of political and public significance; and

 

8. Develop a green ethic within PHMC by recycling and supporting a sustainable museum building and operations.

 

 

-- The PAEP Conservation Heritage Committee will continue to work with Pennsylvania Environmental Heritage Society, PHMC, and other organizations to encourage individuals and organizations to incorporate environmental history into their programs.

 

-- The PAEP will continue to support internships at the State Museum on environmental history research.

 

-- The PAEP will continue to present the Karl Mason Award and incorporate environmental history information into its annual meetings, newsletters, website, and other activities.

 

Special thanks to Beth Hager at the Pennsylvania Heritage Society and Linda Shopes, PHMC Consultant for organizing and conducting thesummit-a big step towards a Pennsylvania Environmental Heritage program.

Wayne W. Kober can be contacted by sending email to: wkober@hughes.net or by calling 717-502-0179.