Interpreting the Dust Bowl: teaching environmental philosophy through film

Abstract

Abstract This paper describes an experiment in using film in teaching environmental philosophy to geography students, which employs a 20‐minute clip from the opening scenes of The Grapes of Wrath (directed by John Ford, 1940). Use is made of the ambiguity of the film's interpretation of conditions in rural Oklahoma during the ‘Dust Bowl’ years of the 1930s to challenge students to apply and illustrate the contrasting viewpoints supplied by a set of widely divergent environmental philosophies. The initial sections of the paper supply a brief note about using film in geographical higher education, before discussing the background to the extract seen by the students. We then provide detailed discussion of the structure and procedures in the classroom exercise, followed by comment on the changes that we have made in the light of experience and student evaluations. The conclusion summarises the lessons that we have learned from this exercise and comments on further use of film for teaching environmental philosophy.