ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE
CHAPTER 1 SCIENCE AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Standards: CLE 3260.Inq.1 Recognize that science is a progressive endeavor that reevaluates and extends what is already accepted.
OBJECTIVES: We will define Environmental Science and make a comparison between that and Ecology. Look at the five major fields of study that influence Environmental Science.
BELLRINGER: WRITE IN YOUR NOTE BOOKS, YOU ONLY HAVE TO WRITE ONE FOR EACH TABLE GROUP. What is the environment? Is the environment
something that can be “harmed,” “saved,”
“preserved,” or “destroyed”?
NOTES:
A. Understanding the environment
1. When we think of the term environment, you could describe many different settings such as rivers, mountains, deserts, or even your back yard.
2. In fact the environment is actually everything around us.
3. The environment includes the natural world and also things produced by humans.
4. The environment is more than what you can see it is a complex web of relationships that connects us with the world we live in.
B. What is environmental science
1. The study of the impact of humans on the environment.
2. One of the major goals of an environmental scientist is to understand and solve environmental problems. To accomplish this goal E.S. study two main types of interactions between humans and the environment.
a. One area focuses on how we use natural resources such as water and plants.
b. The other area focuses on how our actions alter our environment.
3. Environmental science involves many fields of study.
4. Look on page 7 of your book at the different areas of study.
5. You do not have to be an Environmental Scientist to get involved. We can observe the world around us and help to make it a better place to live.
6. We can look at different habitats that we live in. a habitat is a place where an organism usually lives.
C. Our environment through time.
1. Throughout time our environment has changed from the people who lives here before us. The first group of people who lived in the United States were called the hunter-gathers.
2. Hunter-gathers obtained food by collecting plants and hunting wild animals.
3. They moved from place to place in order to find the food needed to survive.
THOUGHT QUESTION: NAME TWO WAYS THAT HUNTER-GATHERS AFFECTED THEIR ENVIRONMENT.
4. The agricultural revolution evolved from the hunter-gathers when they started to take seeds and plant and grew their food.
5. The agricultural revolution changed the way in which farming was developed. Groups of natives were able to settle down and start towns when farming first started. It changed the way food was produced. Today, we eat foods that were developed from the early agricultural revolution.
6. The agricultural revolution allowed human populations to grow at an unprecedented rate.
7. Grasslands, forests, and wetlands were replaced with farmland, habitats were destroyed.
8. Slash and burn agriculture, is one of the earliest ways that land was converted to farmland.
9. Replacing forest with farmland on a large scale can cause soil loss, floods, and water shortages.
D. Industrial revolution
1. For almost 10,000 years tools of human societies were powered by humans or animals.
2. This pattern changed during the middle 1700’s with the industrial revolution.
3. Fossil fuels started to run machinery. This increase use of fossil fuels increased the efficiency of agriculture, industry, and transporation.
4. The production of goods and services became less expensive.
5. Machinery reduced the amount of land and human labor that was needed to farm.
6. Fossil fuels and motorized vehicles allowed food and other goods to be transported cheaply across long distances.
7. Quality of life god better due to the invention of the light bulb, agriculture productivity increased, sanitation, nutrition, and medical care improved.
8. Communication got better with the introduction of the phone and computers.
9. In the 1900’s, saw the development of artificial