Living Things - Environmental Sciences - Lecture Slides, Slides of Environmental Science

Download Living Things - Environmental Sciences - Lecture Slides and more Slides Environmental Science in PDF only on Docsity!

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE 1

Welcome to:

Course Points Breakdown

• 900 points : 700 in lecture, 200 in lab
  • Final grade for course is lecture + lab points
• Lecture:
  • 5 Semester exams + Comprehensive final worth 100 points each
    • Final is mandatory
    • Final will also replace the lowest semester Exam
  • 100 points from 2 literature reviews
• Lab:
  • 11 Labs: 10 pt Manual pages/Handouts and 10 pt quizzes
  • Lowest quiz/handout score dropped
  • MUST attend another lab, same week, if miss a lab (schedule on door)
• A C or better is required for transfer of credits to another College or University

So, how do I make an ‘A’?

• Study Groups – interaction and discussion is essential
• Read the Chap before lecture
• PowerPoint slides
  • What’s emphasized in lecture – some points not written on purpose
  • Objectives and Key concepts in text – make sure you know what these mean
• Participate during lecture (ask questions)
• Come knock on my door (225F) any time!
• Complete the Chapter reviews after lecture - reinforcement

How do I make an ‘A’ in Lab?

• Come to lab every week – simple, but true - ~90% of students who attended every lab got an A for the lab portion of their grade
• Study for quizzes before you come to class - Review last week’s lab before you come to current lab, arrive on time, you will usually get all 10 points ISBN 978-0-470-08767-

Environment: the total of our

• All the things around us with whichsurroundings

we interact:

• Living things ( biotic )
  • animals, plants, forests, fungi, etc.
• Nonliving things ( abiotic )
  • continents, oceans, clouds, soil, rocks
• Our built environment
  • buildings, human-created living centers

Humans and the world around us

• We depend completely on the environment for

survival

• wealth, health, mobility, leisure time
• but natural systems have been degraded
• i.e., pollution, erosion and species extinction
• Environmental science is the study of:
• how the natural world works
• how the environment affects humans and vice-versa

Global human population growth

• 7.033 billion humans (passed 7B in April, just 5 months ago)
• Why so many?
  • Agricultural revolution
    • stable food supplies
  • Industrial revolution
    • urbanized society powered by fossil fuels
    • sanitation, medicine, more food

Thomas Malthus and human population

• Thomas Malthus
  • population growth must be restricted…or it will outstrip food production - starvation, war, disease

The “ecological footprint”

• The environmental

impact of a person or

population

• humans have surpassed the Earth’s capacity

Ecological footprints are not all

equal

• The ecological

footprints of countries

vary greatly

• the U.S. footprint almost 5 times greater than world’s average
• developing countries have much smaller footprints than 15 developed countries docsity.com

Environmental science ≠ environmentalism

• Environmental science…
  • pursuit of knowledge about the natural world
  • scientists remain objective
• Environmentalism…
  • social movement dedicated to protecting the natural world
  • resort to extremes

• Science : The nature of science

• systematic process for learning about the world and testing our understanding of it - observation and testing
• accumulated body of knowledge is a result
• Science is important
• sort fact from fiction
• develop solutions to the problems

The scientific method•Makes observations… asks questions

of some phenomenon

• Formulates a hypothesis
  • statement that attempts to explain the scientific question
• Hypothesis used to generate predictions
  • specific statements that can be directly tested.
• Results either support or reject the hypothesis

The scientific process is part of a larger process

• The scientific process includes peer review , publication , and debate
• A consistently supported hypothesis becomes a theory
  • a well-tested and widely accepted explanation
• With enough data, a paradigm shift can occur
  • a change in the dominant view