Unusually for academics, the authors consider that it is important for the reader to appreciate the context of their writing. To do so they provide a Preface, titled ‘How to make use of this book’, in which they outline their relationships to teaching environmental history at university level, and to the natural environment. Equally unusually, they provide considerable detail about the way they structure their course/subjects, and that this structuring is based on the development of objectives for the students’ learning. While this may seem ‘basic’, in many descriptions of curriculum it is not common to see any clarity about the purpose of that curriculum, in terms of what students are expected to gain.

With this promising start I was disappointed to find that the writing style did not appeal — to me. The narrative style makes finding the key insight hard to identify, and return to. However, others may prefer the style. Since the book is titled a ‘primer’, I anticipated that critical information would be made to stand out; in this case, subheadings would greatly assist. Yet, as I persisted, I found that the authors ‘won me over’ with their passion and intelligent thoughts on teaching complexities of the environment. To a large degree there is not a lot in the Primer that is new; emphasis on the systemic nature of environment and environmental issues, and the importance of deep-learning (through involving students in group projects around current, relatable, topics) are both key elements of environment and sustainability education. But the authors have provided tangible examples of how these concepts, which can be obscure and threatening to the ‘uninitiated’, can be made the bedrock of undergraduate teaching.

The authors both have a strong background in the discipline of history, teaching students of history in small-to-medium sized classes, and their main aim is ‘to provide strategies for designing a new course on environmental history’ (p. 3). Also, they teach in the United States, so almost the entire focus of the Primer is on this discipline, and this geography. The role of other disciplines in environmental matters is often raised, and an instance is provided of team-teaching with an ecologist; this was for an extended field-trip, which in the current context for Australian higher education would be pretty unlikely. Yet, the impression is that their material and insights are relevant only to history. Further, a limitation for those teaching in other continents is that the vast majority of material presented, and examples referred to, are North American.

However, despite these limitations, once the reader focuses on the ways in which the authors use local or current environmental issues (especially those associated with environmental justice) to develop student interest and active engagement, there are opportunities to see how the approaches presented in the Primer could be applied in other contexts. As the authors note, their secondary aim is ‘to deliver ideas for infusing environmental history into other courses’ (p. 3). This seems to set the scene for the first chapter, which uses food to discuss the interconnections of natural and human systems. Then, to provide structure for those courses, the second chapter outlines the need to determine course objectives, or learning outcomes, around which the course would be tailored; the authors propose identification of ‘four to six clear, attainable, measurable, and specific skills your students will have practiced and hopefully mastered by the end of the course’ (p. 28). Environmental history is seen to examine the relationships between human and non-human nature, so Chapter 3 starts with the example of llamas to explore the range of relationships and how these can be used to engage students with the course material and the underlying ideas. Into this mix are thrown descriptions of the assessment tasks that have been used in the authors’ classes, but no indication is provided of any evaluation results related to this teaching and assessment approach. As there is little information provided about how the educational experiences are perceived by the students, many comments and claims have to be gauged against the reader’s own experiences; for example, that experiencing a field-based project, for students, the ‘results are life-changing’ (p. 83) could do with some evidence (a very difficult assessment exercise), or ‘toning down’.

The second part of the book, titled ‘Pathways’, contains three chapters that provide ideas for multidisciplinary teaching covering: aspects of science, especially emphasising the value of field-work; land, in the context of ‘sense of place’ for investigating new places, and historic preservation; and energy and water. Water, especially, is considered a ‘perfect conduit for (the) learning objective (of connecting various approaches to history, as it) allows us to bring the history of labor, politics, race, gender, and technology to bear on a single place or moment in time’ (p. 105). The biophysical environment seems to be ignored in this enthusiasm, but gains some mention when energy, particularly related to climate change, is discussed.

Part 3, ‘Applications’, also has three chapters, to ‘offer suggestions for ways of incorporating the application of diversity, technology and assessment into … course design’ (p. 114). First, environmental justice is seen to be an effective lens to develop understanding of human equity and interaction with biophysical environments, especially when undertaken through group projects involving role-play exercises. Here the authors provide detail of the way they have set up and assessed such projects, and their enthusiasm for the value of the pedagogy can be felt; similar to the experience of others who have used role-plays. ‘Tools’, the second last chapter, outlines a range of electronic options for use in the classroom and/or by students generally. While the authors indicate enthusiasm for the chances of getting students engaged in a range of possible pursuits, there is little discussion of whether students’ learning is enhanced by the technology. Raising possibilities for combining different information delivery mechanisms (e.g., lectures, videos) provides a useful overview of possibilities, if the reader has not come across these ideas before.

As usual, at the conclusion of a course there is an assessment; so, too, does the Primer conclude with ‘the Test’. Covering assessment methods, rubrics and writing, the chapter indicates enthusiasm for assessment tasks where students have to write, since ‘words and sentences are the instruments that move students’ thoughts into new patterns and ideas’ (p. 148). The value of project-based learning is again outlined, especially that it enables performance-based assessment, and teachers have the chance to evaluate students’ understanding of the issues, not just their knowledge of the issues; unfortunately, no specifics about performance-based assessment are provided. More broadly though, possibilities for involving students in the development of rubrics and assessment criteria are discussed, offering the potential for increasing student engagement in the classes and learning process, since there are ‘opportunities to engage with students about their learning, while they are learning’ (p. 144).

Overall then, this Primer is of limited use for educators in the ‘other than’ history disciplines, or outside North America. Even for an historian wanting to revamp or develop a course about environment or sustainability, the Primer, by itself, does not deliver a near fleshed-out curriculum. Rather, its value lies in the ideas discussed in relation to the pedagogy that is important for the delivery of learning for environment, and broadly, sustainability.