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An Introduction to Environmental Science

Our Island, Earth&

The Nature of Environmental Science

AP Environmental Science

Mr. Grant

Lesson 3

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Objectives:

• Define the term environment and the field of environmental science.

• Explain the importance of natural resources and ecosystem services to our lives.

• Discuss the effects of population growth and resource consumption.

• Characterize the interdisciplinary nature of environmental science.

• TED Video - For almost three decades, John Francis has been a planetwalker, traveling the globe by foot and sail with a message of environmental respect and responsibility (for 17 of those years without speaking). A funny, thoughtful talk with occasional banjo.

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Define the term environment and the field of environmental science.

• Our environment consist of everything around us, including living and nonliving things.

• Humans are part of the environment and are not separate from nature.

• Environmental science is the study of how the natural world works, how our environment affects us, and how we affect our environment.

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Explain the importance of natural resources and ecosystem services to our lives.

• Some resources are inexhaustible or perpetually renewable, others are nonrenewable, and still others are renewable if we do not overexploit them.

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Explain the importance of natural resources and ecosystem services to our lives.

• Ecosystem services are benefits we receive from the process and normal functioning of natural systems.

• Resources and ecosystem services are essential to human life and civilization, yet we are depleting and degrading them.

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Discuss the effects of population growth and resource consumption.

• Rapid growth of human population magnifies our environmental impacts.

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Discuss the effects of population growth and resource consumption.

• The tragedy of the commons can lead to resource depletion.

Garret Hardin’s tragedy of the commons: unregulated exploitation of public resources leads to depletion and damage

– Soil, air, water

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Discuss the effects of population growth and resource consumption.

• The ecological footprint concept quantifies a person’s or nation’s resource consumption in terms of area of biologically productive land and water.

If everyone consumed the amount of resources the U.S. does, we would need 4.5 Earths!

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Discuss the effects of population growth and resource consumption.

We are using renewable resources 30% faster than they are being replenished

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Characterize the interdisciplinary nature of environmental science.

• Environmental science employs the approaches and insights of numerous disciplines from the natural science and the social science.

Environmental science is not environmentalism.

Science vs. A Social Movement

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What is an “environmental problem”?

• Whether an environmental condition is seen as a problem

- Depends on the individual and situation

• Ex.: the pesticide DDT

- In malaria-infested Africa: welcome because it kills malaria-carrying mosquitoes

- In America: not welcome, due to health risks

People also differ in their awareness of problems, depending on who they are, where they live, what they do

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TED Video

John Francis Walks the Earth (19:28)

John Francis walks the Earth, carrying a message of careful, truly sustainable development and respect for our planet.

“We have to leave behind the security of who we’ve become and go to the place of who we are becoming.”