Word Origin & History. environment c.1600, state of being environed (see environs); sense of nature, conditions in which a person or thing lives first recorded 1827 (used by Carlyle to render Ger. Umgebung); specialized ecology sense first recorded 1956.
Chinampa (Nahuatl: chinÄmitl [tÊiËnaËmitÉ¬]) is a method of Mesoamerican agriculture which used small, rectangular areas of fertile arable land to grow crops on the shallow lake beds in the Valley of Mexico.urther reading [edit]. 1  Blanton, Richard. 2  Calnek, Edward E., Settlement Pattern and Chinampa Agriculture, American Antiquity 1972, 37(104-15). 3  Chapin, Mac. 4  Cline, S.L., Colonial Culhuacan, 1580-1600: A Social History of an Aztec Town. 5  Parsons, Jeffrey R. The Role of Chinampa Agriculture in the Food Supply of Aztec Tenochtitlan, in Cultural ...
Early versions of these gardens involved massive rafts, upon which soil was piled and then crops were planted. These rafts were anchored in the middle of the lake and the crops upon them were irrigated by the lake's water. Those rafts were a start, but the true chinampas were a bit more complex. Plots were staked out in shallow, marshy lake bed areas using a series of tall poles. A fence made of branches and mud was woven between the poles, creating a rectangular plot which was then filled with mud and vegetation.