Unit 0 Introduction to Environmental Science Study Guide

Ch 1 Environmental Problems, Their Causes, and Sustainability

Objective Questions

  1. Define exponential growth. Describe the connection between exponential growth and environmental problems.
  2. Distinguish between solar capital and natural capital. Evaluate the significance of these forms of capital in the development of human societies.
  3. Distinguish between living on principal and living on interest. Analyze which of these behaviors humans are currently illustrating. Evaluate the possibility of continuing to live in our current style.
  4. Define globalization.
  5. What factors affect globalization?
  6. Summarize the advantages and disadvantages of globalization.
  7. Distinguish between developed countries and developing countries. Describe changes in the wealth gap between these groups of countries.
  8. Distinguish between the following terms: physically depleted and economically depleted resources; nonrenewable, renewable, and potentially renewable resources; reuse and recycle.
  9. Explain how recycling and reuse affect depletion time.
  10. Define sustainable yield.
  11. Describe the relationship between sustainable yield and environmental degradation.
  12. Describe the tragedy of the commons. Summarize how most environmentalists alleviate this type of tragedy.
  13. Distinguish between the following terms: point source of pollution and nonpoint source of pollution; nonpersistent, persistent, and nondegradable pollutants.
  14. Distinguish between pollution prevention and pollution cleanup. Evaluate the effectiveness of these two approaches in decreasing pollution.
  15. Summarize underlying causes of environmental problems.
  16. Describe a simple model of relationships among population, resource use, technology, environmental degradation, and pollution.
  17. Evaluate which model (#16) is most useful to you. Assess which model would be most useful in explaining these relationships to young children and which more closely resembles reality.
  18. Summarize strategies humans can use to work closely with the earth.

Vocab

biodiversity / biodegradable pollutants / culture
developed countries / developing countries / ecological footprint
ecological tipping point / ecology / economic development
economic growth / environment / environmental degradation
environmental ethics / environmental science / environmental wisdom worldview
environmental worldview / environmentalism / environmentally sustainable society
exponential growth / gross domestic product (GDP) / input pollution control
less-developed countries / more-developed countries / natural capital
natural income / natural resources / natural services
nondegradable pollutants / nonpoint sources / nonrenewable resources
nutrient cycling / organisms / output pollution control
per capita ecological footprint / per capita GDP / perpetual resource
planetary management worldview / point sources / pollution
pollution cleanup / pollution prevention / poverty
recycling / renewable resource / resource
reuse / social capital / species
stewardship worldview / sustainability / Sustainable yield

Ch 2 Environmental History: Learning From the Past

Objective Questions

1. Define three major cultural and environmental changes that have occurred since humans were hunter-gatherers.

2. Describe the environmental history of the United States in terms of the Tribal and Frontier Eras, the Early Conservation Era, and the Environmental Era.

3. Compare slash-and-burn agricultural practices with the modern advanced forms of farming. State the advantages and disadvantages of each.

4. List individuals who made major contributions to conservation/environmental movements in the United States and briefly describe these contributions.

5. Define environmental backlash. Briefly describe the effects of this backlash.

6. Summarize the key environmental events of the 1980s in the U.S.

7. Compare and contrast the environmental policies of the Clinton administration and the two Bush administrations.

8. What have the following people done to help or weaken environmental movements.

(Included in your Vocab foldables.)

Aldo Leopold

John Muir

Theodore Roosevelt

Rachel Carson

Jimmy Carter

Ronald Reagan

Bill Clinton

George H. W. Bush

George W. Bush

Vocab

agricultural revolution / conservation
conservation biologist / conservationist
ecologist / environmental movement
environmental scientist / environmentalist
EPA / frontier environmental worldview
hunter-gatherers / industrial-medical revolution
information and globalization revolution / preservationist
restorationist / shifting cultivation
slash-and-burn cultivation

Ch 3 Science, Systems, Matter, and Energy

Objective Questions

  1. Describe how science works.
  2. Distinguish between frontier and consensus science.
  3. Summarize the limits of environmental science.
  4. Define matter.
  5. Distinguish between forms of matter and quality of matter.
  6. Define energy.
  7. Distinguish between forms of energy and quality of energy.
  8. Define and explain mathematical models and how they are useful in predicting the behavior of a complex system.
  9. Describe synergistic interactions within a complex system.
  10. Describe how the law of conservation of matter and the law of conservation of energy govern normal physical and chemical changes.
  11. Briefly describe the second law of energy (thermodynamics).
  12. Define radioactivity.
  13. Distinguish between natural radioactivity, nuclear fission, and nuclear fusion.
  14. Define a high-throughputeconomy.
  15. Explain where you would expect to see this type of economy.
  16. Define a low-throughput economy.
  17. Explain where you would expect to see this type of economy.
  18. Compare the sustainability of these two different types of economies for future generations of people.

Vocab

acid / acid solution / alpha particle / atom
atomic number / basic solution / beta particle / biodegradable
biodegradable pollutant / chain reaction / chemical / chemical change
chemical formula / chemical reaction / chromosome / compound
concentration / conduction / consensus science / convection
corrective feedback loop / critical mass / deductive reasoning / degradable pollutant
deuterium (D; hydrogen-2) / DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) / electromagnetic radiation / electron (e)
element / energy / energy efficiency / energy productivity
energy quality / experiment / feedback loop / first law of thermodynamics
flows / frontier science / gamma rays / genes
genome / half-life / heat / high-quality energy
high-quality matter / high-throughput economy / hydrocarbon / inductive reasoning
inorganic compounds / input / ion / ionizing radiation
isotopes / junk science / kinetic energy / law of conservation of energy
law of conservation of matter / low-quality energy / low-quality matter / low-throughput economy
low-waste society / mass / mass number / material efficiency
matter / matter quality / matter-recycling economy / mixture
model / molecule / natural ionizing radiation / natural law
natural radioactive decay / negative feedback loop / neutral solution / neutron (n)
nondegradable pollutant / nonionizing radiation / nonpersistent pollutant / nuclear change
nuclear fission / nuclear fusion / nucleus / organic compounds
output / parts per billion (ppb) / parts per million (ppm) / parts per trillion (ppt)
pH / physical change / plasma / pollutant
positive feedback loop / potential energy / ppb / ppm
ppt / proton (p) / radiation / radioactive decay
radioactive isotope / radioactivity / radioisotope / resource productivity
science / scientific data / scientific hypothesis / scientific law
scientific methods / scientific model / scientific theory / second law of energy
second law of thermodynamics / slowly degradable pollutant / sound science / subatomic particles
synergistic interaction / synergy / system / temperature
throughput / time delay

Ch 4 (3: If we get our NEW Book ) VOCAB

abiotic / aerobic respiration / anaerobic respiration
atmosphere / autotrophs / biogeochemical cycles
biomass / biosphere / biotic
carbon cycle / carnivores / chemosynthesis
community / consumers / decomposers
detritivores / ecology / ecosystem
fermentation / food chain / food web
greenhouse gases / gross primary productivity (GPP) / herbivores
heterotrophs / hydrologic (water) cycles / hydrosphere
natural greenhouse effect / net primary productivity (NPP) / nitrogen cycle
nutrient (biogeochemical) cycles / omnivores / organisms
photosynthesis / phosphorus cycle / population
primary consumers / producers / pyramid of energy flow
secondary consumers / stratosphere / sulfur cycle
tertiary consumers / trophic level / troposphere