Why are we learning about Animals and Plants in Humanities?

It's a good question--why are we learning about animals and plants in a Humanities course?

The answer is simple:

The study of humanities is really the study of people, their lives, and the ways they express themselves. In order to fully understand the art, music, literature, and history of a people, we must first understand how the people lived, what their challenges were, what they did for fun, etc. In short, we have to understand their culture.

And culture is, in large part, defined by environment (including geography and natural resources) and technology (including what people do with their environment and natural resources according to THEIR understanding and science, not ours). The animals and plants are a big part of the environment. They provide food, clothing, work, and shelter for people. Sometimes they influenced the religion of the people in the area. They also provide medicine, hobbies, toys, dishes, etc. The animals and plants also can be a source of danger and a source of protection for people. In short, the animals and plants helped shape the world of the people in the past more directly than we realize they do now, so in understanding the people, it's helpful to understand the animals and plants they interacted with on a regular basis.

Besides, in real life, the world isn't divided up into "subjects" that never cross over. It is good to see different subjects, like biology and art, in the context of the real world (instead of the context of a classroom) because these subjects, as distant as they sometimes seem to us today, came from and relate to our world and our needs as human beings still today.