Can History Teaching Contribute Towards Saving the Planet? Reflections on the Value of Including Environmental History in the Zimbabwean Advanced Level History Curriculum

This chapter argues for the inclusion of environmental history in the Zimbabwean Advanced Level History Curriculum (ALHC). This is premised on the understanding that the planet is in the age of the Anthropocene, and current environmental challenges emanate largely from the way humans have interacted with the environment over the past two centuries. This has contributed to climate change-induced disasters. Additionally, humanity is facing air and water pollution, desertification, and, of late, COVID-19 pandemic; all of which have contributed to destruction of infrastructures, migrations, and deaths. Yet, to date, non-environmental topics, focusing on politics, colonialism, wars, and liberation movements, still dominate the Zimbabwean ALHC. So, using intersectionality and all-inclusive ecologies of knowledge approach, based on a trans-modern pluriversal view, as theoretical lenses, we highlight how environmental history intersects with other histories that form the Zimbabwean ALHC and, simultaneously, we demonstrate the need to recentre environmental history and include it in Zimbabwean ALHC. Arguably, this will give students an opportunity to engage content on the activities of humans on the environment and appreciate how these have shaped local, regional, and global environments, in the process inculcating positive attitudes and values about stewardship of the planet’s resources.