Before enrolling in Professor Ted Fitts’s “American Environmental History” course, I had never really considered the relationship between people and nature. Hailing from Staten Island, NY, reports about the impending Freshkills Park, being built on top of the closed Freshkills Landfill, didn’t exactly excite me, but they certainly didn’t bother me either. However, as I made my way through the course and became more intrigued by our somewhat damaged conception of our place in nature, I recognized that I had a more intense reaction to the issue to which I once was indifferent. As I approached the final essay, which was fairly open in topic, I knew that I wanted to reflect on Freshkills Park. What most interests me about this stretch of land is its shift from a massive, abused dump to an aesthetically-pleasing park, a change that I feel speaks volumes, in both a literal and metaphorical way, about our relationship with nature.
KATHERINE THOMPSON is a rising sophomore, majoring in biology. She was born and resides in Staten Island, NY. She would like to thank her WR 150 professor, Ted Fitts, for his continued support and guidance through the process of writing this essay.