Our first major project was a prospectus paper sharing our research question and a basic literature review to document sources on our topic. While this wasn't an overwhelmingly difficult assignment, it took me a bit to narrow down the list of topics I was given as part of my site's TPL program. In the week that we had to complete the assignment, I probably changed the focus of my research at least twice before I finally settled on studying the human impact on the North Platte River from the time of the pioneers until now.
If you're thinking that sounds like a HUGE topic, you're right. It is. My task over the next few weeks is to figure out how to narrow and focus this research question. Luckily, I have a lot of resources at my fingertips and many contacts who are more than willing to share their expertise and advice. I won't bore you with the entire paper, but will happily share if you'd like to read it.
I have read several articles about human impact, ecology and conservation and have found a couple of very interesting ones. I read an article that examines conservation and ecology for an outdoor education instructor located in Australia. The ecological challenges and human impact from the Australian history actually closely mirrored Wyoming history with the influence of pioneers on the waterways. This made me think of the "Wyoming People Dream" project my students completed with Ideas to Inspire a couple years ago. If you haven't had a chance to check out the amazing project, you can see the final product on the website at www.ideastoinspire.org.
If you're into nature and science, I would also recommend reading "An Introduction to Wildland Ethics and Management." The resource is published by NOLS (a outdoor education group focusing on leadership and wilderness skills) and had some very meaningful descriptions about what a wilderness is and the early development of preservation and conservation. I was loaned the 1992 edition by one of my BLM contacts I shadowed (along with a HUGE stack of other resources and pamphlets I'm still trying to sort through), but as I was looking online, there is a more recently updated edition. One particular quote that stood out to me was "wilderness provides a medium through which people can reacquaint themselves with the wildness within the human soul."
Other resources I've read to this point, I'm not totally crazy about and so I am still on the lookout. This week I will be digging in to some primary resources (diary entries from pioneers) to see if I can find descriptions of the river during the mid-1800s. There's also a visit to the archivist in town to see what other primary resources I can use in my research.
