Name____________________________________________
The Nature of Environmental Science
Environmental scientists aim to comprehend how Earth’s natural systems function,
how humans are influenced by those systems, and how we are influencing those
systems. Many environmental scientists are motivated by a desire to develop
solutions to environmental problems.
Environmental science is an interdisciplinary pursuit
Studying our interactions with our environment is a complex endeavor that requires
expertise from many disciplines, including ecology, earth science, chemistry, biology,
economics, political science, demography, ethics, and others. Environmental science
is thus an interdisciplinary field—one that borrows techniques from numerous
disciplines and brings research results from these disciplines together into a broad
synthesis (see figure).
Traditional established
disciplines are valuable
because their scholars delve
deeply into topics,
uncovering new knowledge
and developing expertise in
particular areas.
Interdisciplinary fields are
valuable because their
practitioners take specialized
knowledge from different
disciplines, consolidate it,
synthesize it, and make sense
of it in a broad context to
better serve the multifaceted
interests of society.
Environmental science is
especially broad because it
encompasses not only the
natural sciences (disciplines that study the natural world), but also the social
sciences (disciplines that study human interactions and institutions). The natural
sciences provide us the means to gain accurate information about our world and to
interpret it reasonably. Comprehending our interactions with the environment,
however, also involves weighing values and understanding human behavior—and
this requires the social sciences. Most environmental science programs focus
predominantly on the natural sciences as they pertain to environmental issues.
Programs that incorporate the social sciences heavily often use the term
environmental studies to describe their academic umbrella. Whichever approach
one takes, these fields reflect many diverse perspectives and sources of knowledge.
Figure 1