This document provides an overview of environmental science. It defines environmental science as the systematic study of our environment and our place in it, with goals of understanding how the natural world works, how humans interact with the environment, and how we affect the environment. Environmental science is also described as an interdisciplinary field that is mission-oriented. The document outlines the process of science and key concepts in environmental science such as natural experiments, manipulated experiments, and scientific consensus. It also briefly discusses the history of conservation and environmentalism.

14. Environner: to encircle or
surround.
Can be defined as:
1. The circumstances and
conditions that surround an
organism or a group of
organisms
2. The social and cultural
conditions that affect an
individual or a community.

16. ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE
It is the systematic study of our
environment and our place in it.
Goals:
1. Learn how the natural world works
2. Understand how us humans interact
with the environment
3. Determine how we affect the
environment

17. ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE
also referred to as an interdisciplinary
field:
Mission-oriented

18.  By the National Environmental Education
Advancement Project in Winsconsin
1. Awareness and Appreciation of Natural and built
environment
2. Knowledge of Natural systems and ecological
concepts
3. Understanding of current environmental issues
4. Ability to use analytical and problem-solving
skills on environmental issues.

19.  Science is a process for producing empirical
knowledge about the natural world through
methodical and logical studies of nature.
 Science derived from scire, “to know” in Latin.
 Science depends on making precise observations of
natural phenomena.
 Science depends on skepticisms and accuracy
 Reproducibility –produce the same result consistently
(Replication)
 Accuracy – is correctness of measurements
 Precision - means repeatability of results and level of
detail.

20.  Science studies problem methodically.
 Scientific Theory

21. Science often involves probability.
PROBABILITY
is a measure of how likely something is
to occur.
does not tell you what will happen, but
it tells you what is likely to happen.
 Ecological tests are generally considered significant if there
is less than 5% probability that the results were achieved by
random chance. A probability of less than 1% gives still
greater confidence in the results.

22. 1. Natural Experiment
– Involves observation of events that have already
happened.
2. Manipulated Experiments
– Conditions are deliberately altered, and all other
variables are held constant.
3. Blind Experiments
– Are often used, in which the researcher doesn’t
know which group is treated until after the data
have been analyzed.

23. Science is a cumulative process.
Scientific Consensus, general agreement among
informed scholars.
Paradigm Shifts by Thomas Kuhn, occur when a
majority of scientists accepts that the old
explanation no longer explains new observation
very well.
Sound Science

24. THINKING ABOUT
THINKING

25. 1. Analytical Thinking
“How can I break this problem down into its constituent parts?”
2. Creative Thinking
“How might I approach this problem in new and inventive ways?”
3. Reflective Thinking
“What does it all mean?”
4. Logical Thinking
“How can orderly, deductive reasoning help me think clearly?”
5. Critical Thinking
“What I am trying to accomplish here, and how will I know when
I’ve succeeded?”

26. BRIEF HISTORY OF
CONSERVATION AND
ENVIRONMENTALISM

27. 1. Pragmatic resource conservation
2. Moral and aesthetic nature preservation
3. A growing concern about health and
ecological damage caused by pollution
4. Global environmental citizenship

29.  National Forest Reserves were
established in US in 1873 to protect
dwindling timber supplies and
endangered watersheds.
 Established the framework of the
National Forest, Park and
Wildlife refuge system by Gifford
Pinchot together with naturalists and
activists.
 Pragmatic UTILITARIAN
CONSERVATION
“Resources should be used for the greatest
good, for the greatest number, for the longest
time.”

30.  BIOCENTRIC PRESERVATION
(John Muir)
“The world, we are told, was made for man. A
presumption that is totally unsupported by the
facts… Nature’s objects in making animals and
plants might possibly be first of all the
happiness of each one of them… why ought
man to value himself as more than an infinitely
small unit of the one great unit of creation?”
 Conservation by Aldo Leopold
“We abuse land because we regard it as a
commodity belonging to us. When we see land
as a community to which we belong, we may
begin to use it with love and respect.”

31. National Fog And Smoke Committee In
1880
MODERN ENVIRONMENTALISM
 Include both natural resources and
environmental pollution
First National Earth Day in 1970

32. GLOBAL
ENVIRONMENTALISM
We face many environmental
problems.

33. The Earth was
created for life,
not only human
life.