The history of the american national parks

Thesis (M.A.)--Humboldt State University, History, Teaching of American History, 2012Many people think that the conservation-movement started in the twentieth century; but contrary to that belief, it started in 1847 when George P. Marsh, a U.S. Congressman from Vermont, called attention to the destructive impact that people were having on the land, especially in deforestation. He called for a conservationist approach to the management of the forested land because we were depleting our nation???s natural resources with devastating speed. By 1860 the negative effect of exploitation of tourism and livestock grazing in the high country of Yosemite were causing rampant and irreversible damage. Ongoing poaching and park devastation in Yellowstone required Congress to deploy the U.S. Army to build a camp at Mammoth Hot Springs to protect wildlife and natural reserves in 1886. The rookeries that provided nurseries for nesting young birds and the egrets and herons that graced the Florida landscape were being slaughtered at a rate of 5 million a year in 1886 to provide feathers for women???s hats. Clearly, federal intervention and enforced protection would have to ensue before the integrity of the United States??? natural resources were permanently compromised and all wildlife would go the way of the passenger pigeon. \ud This thesis will examine the early United States conservation legislation that was introduced to Congress and became laws to protect our vanishing wilderness and wildlife. It will also investigate President Theodore Roosevelt and how he courageously and with conviction pursued the rights of ???Citizen Bird???. This project will include 9 lesson plans for the elementary and middle school students that will acquaint them with the early history of American conservation and the development of the National Park System. Most important of all, the students will come away from these lesson plans with a feeling of respect and stewardship for the natural world they share this earth with