Our Environmental Studies seminar focuses on the Mississippi River, looking at a wide variety of topics in an interdisciplinary framework. The course examines many ways the river affects the environment and human activity, as well as how the environment and human activity affect the river. The seminar will provide highlights of some of the topics covered in the class, including engineering and flood control efforts, as well as the effects of flooding; historic and modern transportation uses; settlement patterns by both Native Americans and colonists; the Mississippi Delta, cotton, slavery, sharecropping, and the Great Migration; local plants and animals, and population trends; and the history of New Orleans. A theme throughout the course is how the river has influenced the mixing of cultures and the wonderful effect that has had on American music.
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