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UNIT 1
Intro to Environmental Science
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Environment | Term used to described the natural world; includes all living and nonliving things |
| Environmental Activism | A social movement in which people or organizations advocate for protection of the natural environment |
| Ecology | A purely scientific study of natural environments |
| Environmental Science | The study of ecology combined with the focus on how humans affect the environment and ways to address environmental problems |
| Environmental Science: What makes it an interdisciplinary approach? | Environmental science involves biology, chemistry, earth science, economics, and political science |
| Renewable Natural Resources | Resources that are naturally replenished over short periods of time |
| Nonrenewable Natural Resources | Natural resources that take a long time to replenish |
| Sustainable Rate | A rate that allows for a resource to be replaced at the same rate it is used |
| Agricultural Revolution | Humans shifted from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to live in communities, raise livestock and plant crops. |
| Industrial Revolution | The production of machinery allowed for advances in medicine, agriculture, and other technologies. |
| Ecological Footprint | A measure of the demands made by one person or group on global natural resources; includes the materials and resources consumed AND the resources needed to dispose of the waste produced |
| Tragedy of the Commons | When a shared (common) resource is unregulated, individuals will consume it at a selfish rate |
| Science | A logical way of thinking about the world; always growing and changing as new information becomes known |
| Inferences | Logical guesses or predictions |
| The Scientific Method | The way in which scientists gather and use information: #1. State the problem or question based on observations, #2. Research, #3. Form hypothesis, #4. Test hypothesis with experiments, #5. Collect and analyze data, #6. Interpret. #7. Share |
| Hypothesis | A testable explanation for a question or problem |
| Inductive Reasoning | Reasoning that looks for patterns or rules in the natural world |
| Deductive Reasoning | Reasoning that compares new things to the rules of the natural world |
| Controlled Experiment | An experiment that only changes one variable at a time |
| Controls | Variables that are being kept the same in an experiment |
| Independent Variable | Variables that are being changed in an experiment |
| Dependent Variable | Variables which changes are being measured as a result in an experiment |
| Qualitative Data | Data that contains words or descriptions |
| Quantitative Data | Data that contains numbers or measurements |
| Peer Review | Where peers, or people who have the same level of education/specialization, review the experiment to determine if there are flaws with the process or the conclusions |
| Scientific Theory | Explains a phenomenon and is supported by many different fields of evidence; broad explanations that apply to many situations |
| Ethics | The branch of knowledge that deals with moral principles |
| Anthropocentrism | Places the most value on human populations and human welfare |
| Biocentrism | Places value on each and every organism, including humans |
| Ecocentrism | Places value on the ecosystem or community as a whole, rather than individuals |
| Economics | The study of the production and consumption of scarce resources and the way they affect behaviour |
| Supply | The amount of a resource available |
| Demand | The number of people that are willing to purchase or use that resource |
| Cost-Benefit Analysis | The decision-making process that involves the consideration of the cost of a resource and whether or not it is worth what is gained |
| Ecosystem Services | The benefits or values provided by an ecosystem |
| Provisioning Ecosystem Services | Goods that humans use directly from the ecosystem |
| Regulating Ecosystem Services | The ability of an ecosystem to regulate air, soil, or water quality, provide flood control or disease control |
| Cultural Ecosystem Services | Non-material benefits that people obtain from the ecosystem |
| Supporting Ecosystem Services | Provides the necessities to allow an ecosystem to function |
| Regulations | Policies that focus on the threat of punishment if rules are not followed; work well but are expensive to enforce |
| Incentives | The encouragement of an environmentally friendly activity through subsidies or tax breaks |
| Subsidies | Payments by the government for an action or characteristic |
| Cap-and-Trade Policies | Limits the total amount of pollutants, allows for polluting companies to buy permits that can be sold and traded to other companies if the limit is not reached |
| Environmental Policies | Rules put in place to regulate the effects of human activities on the environment; can be made on the local, state, national, or global level |
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