Exhibit+Rationale

The devastating dust storms of the 1930s Dust Bowl hit the United States at the same time as the Great Depression. Farmers sustained a significant blow and learned that the land must be properly cared for. Without this care, the land would turn to dust and the farmers would no longer be able to support themselves or their families. The impact of this event brought about changes in farming practices that would prevent future disaster. The Dust Bowl farmers of the 1930s learned that the land must receive proper care in order to sustain life, a lesson that remains true today.

The importance of the Dust Bowl was that it demonstrated to the American people the need to change the farming practices common at the time. Practices such as allowing land to be overgrazed and plowing hills vertically had played a major role in the disaster. This changed after the dust settled when President Franklin D. Roosevelt implemented new programs to promote soil conservation. Programs such as the Soil Conservation Service helped farmers utilize tactics to prevent erosion. The Great Plains Committee studied how to appropriately use the land in the areas affected. The farmers learned that the land must be cared for. This lesson remains true today in many respects, when applied in different ways. For example, this lesson could be applied on a global scale in response to the impact of global warming. The Dust Bowl was not only important in the changes made in farming but in a universal lesson as well.

To properly understand the universal lesson that can be gained from the experiences of American farmers, one must study the event from beginning to end. To understand the impact of mankind on the environment, one must explore the root causes of the Dust Bowl. The farmers were at least partially at fault in this situation. Poor farming practices combined with drought created the perfect conditions for the Dust Bowl. In order to see the effects of mankind’s impact, one must study the dust storms themselves and the immediate impacts on both the environment and man. The dust storms’ enormous clouds blanketed everything in sight in dust. As their valuable topsoil blew away, the farmers were unable to keep their land and were forced to migrate to areas such as California. In California, they endured more suffering as unwelcome “Okies.” It is also important for one to realize that lessons can be gleaned from the farmers’ experience and that there can be hope for the future. To learn this, one could explore President Franklin Roosevelt’s actions to provide the farmers with relief and tactics to prevent future incidences. In studying these aspects of the Dust Bowl, one can find many applications of this lesson in recent times.

An online format that breaks the necessary aspects of the Dust Bowl into separate pages provides an effective method of conveying these aspects to an audience. The different pages allow the viewer to take in the information at their own pace. Visuals are used to underline the messages, or in some cases to provide an example of a situation. These visuals aid in understanding the text and provide another dimension to the overall appearance of the exhibit. Visuals that show the destruction caused by the dust storms demonstrate nature’s fury. The visuals of the migrant laborers convey the mood of despair associated with the disaster. Together with text in tables, the viewers can understand the connection between the text and its accompanying visual. However, visuals and text alone cannot fully engage the viewers. Sources such as embedded video clips can be used to add another dimension to the viewers’ understanding and help to maintain their interest in the event. For example, a clip that shows one of the dust storms and subsequent damage allows the viewer to identify with the farmers who suffered through this disaster and help them to learn the same lesson that the farmers themselves learned decades before.

In exploring the Dust Bowl as a study in environmental impact, certain aspects of the farmer’s plight are not emphasized. Economic reasons for the farmers’ suffering such as the Great Depression and failure to pay mortgages due to the lack of fertile topsoil to nourish crops are not emphasized. While these factors contributed to the farmers’ suffering, they did not emphasize the need for the people to respect the land. Politics of the time, outside of President Roosevelt’s response to the Dust Bowl are also not emphasized. Politics of the time were generally geared towards the Depression and attempts at a solution. The environment as a whole was likely not one of the pressing matters that politicians addressed with a sense of urgency. As politics and politicians were largely focusing their attention on the Depression, politics of this time do not reflect the need to respect the land and give it the proper care it needs to sustain life.

The lesson to the farmers of the Dust Bowl regions is a universal lesson that can be applied in present day as well: the land must be respected and cared for, or disaster may result. It is important to share this lesson by studying fundamental aspects of the causes and impacts of the Dust Bowl. In studying these aspects in a multi-dimensional online setting, one can learn this lesson as it manifests itself in textual, visual, and video form. One will learn that while the dust storms blew away topsoil, they blew in a newfound knowledge of and respect for nature.