Understanding our Environment…
1. Environment:
· From the French environner: to encircle or surround.
o The circumstances or conditions that surround an organism or group of organisms, OR
o The complex of social or cultural conditions that affect an individual or community.
o The complex of social or cultural conditions that affect an individual or community.
§ Since humans inhabit the natural world as well as the "built" or technological, social, and cultural world, all constitute important parts of our environment.
2. Environmental Science:
o Systematic study of our environment and our proper place in it.
o Highly interdisciplinary, integrating natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities in a broad, holistic study of the world around us.
o Mission-oriented, problem solving science.
o Seeks new knowledge about (and impacts of humans on) the natural world.
o Identifies solutions to environmental problems.
§ These solutions often involve human social systems as well as natural science.
3. Our Environment:
The vast multitude of life here is such an amazing feature. The rich diversity of life creates self-sustaining ecosystems. Sounds great right? We face persistent challenges that must be addressed as well. Some of these include climate change, hunger, clean water issues, energy resources, air quality, biodiversity loss, and marine resource (seafood) problems. There are however signs of hope though. Some of these signs are progression in population and pollution, health concerns being solved, renewable energy introduced, information and education available, conservation of forests and nature preserves, and protection of marine resources.
Sustainability is a search for ecological stability and human progress that can last over the long term. We are working towards protecting and making things last.
4. Scientific Method:
This method including observation, hypothesis, testing, gathering data, and interpreting results is an orderly way to examine problems. Probability is the measure of how likely something is to occur. Understanding probability reduces uncertainty. There are natural experiments and manipulative experiments. Science is a cumulative process. Critical thinking helps us analyze information and learn about environmental science.
5. Sustainable Development:
We are trying to meet the demands of today’s population without compromising the resources of tomorrow’s generations. The earliest scientific ideas started in the 18th century. These ideas have been coming for a while, but like technology, it is hard to keep up with what we can do to keep our environment safe for us and the future. Politics and progress are two words that are hard to make nice in the same sentence. I believe the government should be more responsible for keeping the environment safe.
Environmental Systems...
6. Systems:
A simple system consists of compartments that store resources like energy, water, or matter. The compartments of a system include plants, herbivores, carnivores, and decomposers. . Herbivory, predation, and photosynthesis are examples of flows. A flow transfers energy and matter from one state variable to another. Systems can be open, exchanging energy or matter, and closed systems, which are rare. Systems can exhibit stability. Everything taking up space and having mass is matter. Matter is recycled and doesn’t disappear, never created or being destroyed.
7. Elements:
Matter is recycled and doesn’t disappear, never created or being destroyed. Matter is consisted of elements which have predictable characteristics. The smallest particles of elements are atoms. Oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, and hydrogen make up over 96% of the mass in most living organisms. When atoms join they become compounds better known as molecules. Cells make up all living organisms. Our bodies have around several trillion cells.
8. Energy:
Energy provides structure or force to hold matter together, tear it apart, or move it. Examples of energy include heat, light, electricity, and chemical energy. Energy flows in a one way path. Energy, like matter, is neither created nor destroyed. It is conserved. For most living organisms the sun is the greatest energy source.
9. Species:
Species are organisms of the same kind, deriving from the Latin word meaning kind. A population is the species in an area, making up a biological community. Photosynthesis is a necessity of all ecosystems. Producers use this process. It is the primary element for all other growth in the ecosystem. What it produces is called biomass, food for animals, or even us. Animals that eat biomass are called secondary producers. A food web, like a food chain, explains how energy is transferred, from the sun all the way to the animals that eat animals that eat plants.
Herbivores – eat plants
Carnivores – eat flesh
Omnivores – eat both
The food chain is easily seen in a pyramid charts.
10. Cycles on Earth:
Movement of our mass/matter here on earth is also called biogeochemical cycling. Many substances have cycles including:
Water – The Hydrologic Cycle
Carbon- The Carbon Cycle
Nitrogen- The Nitrogen Cycle
Sulfur- The Sulfur Cycle
Phosphorus- The Phosphorus Cycle
These cycles are just the process of this type of matter and the path it follows.
Evolution, Species, Interactions, and Biological communities…
11. Evolution spawning Diversity:
Adaptation is the acquisition of traits that allow a species to survive in its environment. Natural Selection is the process of passing down beneficial traits to the next generation. Charles Darwin noted on Alfred R. Wallace’s idea saying that dog or horse breeders only selected the best, to reproduce, based on strength or speed etc. to indulge in this idea of natural selection. Species are limited to where they might live depending upon many variables including: physiological stress, competition with other species, disease, and luck, yes I said it…luck. Species have tolerance limits, which means they can endure a lot but have limits in which succeeded they may die or not reproduce.
12. Species Relationships, Communities and Growth:
Taxonomy is the study of organisms and their relationships. There are 6 kingdoms to categorize species: animals, plants, fungi, protists, bacteria, and archaebacteria. Every living species is classified into one of these kingdoms. Taxonomy organizes these relationships. Symbiosis is when 2 or more species live together intimately and their fates are linked. When this occurs and the 2 species share tissue it is called mutualism. Many believe this relationship is very important to evolution and survival of the fittest. Keystone species are those that exert their influence by changing competitive relationships.
13. Communities depending on species and diversity:
Species have limitations on their growth. We separate them into 2 groups called r- and k- selected species. The r-selected species (like dandelions, prey) reproduce many and quickly, along with many difference the k-selected species (like tigers, predators) are opposite and do things at a much slower rate. No one species can live alone. Diversity is the number of different species in an area. Abundance is the amount of one particular animal in an area. There are lots of ways for us to help these communities, planting something works wonders.
14. Changing Communities:
When we think of communities I believe we sometimes forget how the plants and animals help to make up that community! They are a huge part of it. A climax community is one that has been there for a long time, with growth galore. A disturbance is anything that disrupts the diversity, abundance, community structures, or properties. These can be natural or man made.
Biomes and Biodiversity...
15. Biomes:
Biodiversity is the amount of varied species in an ecosystem. The term Biomes is used when referring to a biological community with particular traits. If they know a little bit about the biome then they can predict what kind of community it is likely to be. The world is segregated into different types of biomes, depending on the elevation, rainfall, where they are in terms of the equator, etc.
16. In the ocean:
Scientists do not understand the ocean as well as they do or lands but know it is just as complex. They do know that the further down the ocean goes the colder and less light there is. This makes for lower metabolism rates and slower growth. The animals that live near shore and with more light grow more rapidly and have higher rates. Coral reefs are a major part of the ocean, and are being threatened by coral bleaching.
17. Fresh waters:
Lakes are usually at the center of biodiversity, not as extensive as oceans, but have lots of activity surrounding them. Wetlands are shallow and very productive. Endangered species tend to live near wetlands. They filter and purify urban and farm runoff. At least half of the original wetlands in the U.S. have been drained.
18. Biodiversity, what it means:
Three kinds of biodiversity are necessary to save ecosystems: Genetic, variety of versions of the same genes, Species, different kinds of organisms in same areas, and Ecological, the richness and complexity of a community. Biodiversity hot spots are rich and threatened. This is crucial to us since they provide us with foods and medicines, and of course beauty. Extinction, pollution, overpopulation, overharvesting, hunting, fishing, and invasive species are major threats to biodiversity. Our lawmakers are trying to keep up and help make new laws for all that harms our ecosystems now. They probably just need to do it in a more threatened fashion.
conservingbiodiversity.yolasite.com
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