ULOa Let’s Check Let’s Analyze 1. Environmental Science 2. Environmental Science 3. Environment 4. Science 5. System 6. Open Systems 7. Sustainability 8. Environmental Ethics 9. Disturbance 10. Atom 1. Environmental Science is a study of the environment and how it affects us, integrating other branches of science in order to find solutions to current environmental concerns such as pollution, global warming, climate change, overpopulation, deforestation and many others. Dimensions are also included in the study because they are related to the environment and are necessary in understanding how everything work so that we are able to fix them. 3. Scientific Method Problem Hypothesis Prediction Solution Result 2. Science is a methodological and logical study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world. Its basic principles are empiricism, uniformitarianism, parsimony, uncertainty, repeatability, elusive proof and testable questions. Empiricism holds that we can learn about the world by carefully observing them, whereas uniformitarianism holds that basic patterns and processes do not change across time and space or are the same in the past, in the present, and even in the future. Problem is important because it provides us with something to figure out or analyze, as well as direction in which the study will proceed. A hypothesis is an educated guess, an idea, a proposition, or a tentative answer to an underlying problem that will provide us with a specific scope to devise a plan or a method to test it. Prediction is the result we expect after conducting the method we intend to use to test our hypothesis, which will set the type of data we will gather on its actual duration. Solution is when we actually put our methods into action, and most importantly, when we collect data of observations where we will derive the results of our study. The interpretation of data or the result will determine whether we can finally conclude our study, or we can continue formulating more hypothesis to test to find an answer to our study’s problem. 4. Environmental Science studies ethics because they are related; our personal ethics or how we value our environment in our lives determines the extent of the action we are willing to do to address our concerning environmental problems, which is an approach we can also use to convince other people to do the same. Examples of environmental ethics are practical conservation and biocentric preservation. The former emphasizes the importance of environment for the benefit of the lives of the people whereas the latter emphasizes simply the natural fundamental right of other organisms to exist and to pursue their interests. In A Nutshell 3. Carrying capacity refers to the maximum number of species that an environment can support, which is determined by limiting factors such as food, water, shelter, space, disease, predation, and climatic conditions. When a population approaches or exceeds its carrying capacity, resources become limited, and deaths begin to outnumber births until an equilibrium is reached in which birth rate equals death rate. From this perspective, I can draw the conclusion that population cannot keep growing continuously and at some point, nature has its way of stabilizing things even that includes us humans. And perhaps we are still undergoing some kind of transition in which we haven’t reach the peak just yet. 4. An open system allows matter or energy to enter or leave its system, whereas a closed system, does the opposite. Our ecosystem is an example of an open system while our Earth is an example of the closed ones. Both of these systems are important; as open system is the machine that sustains life to keep it operating, closed system is what conserves its fuel to make its operation possible. 5. Because matter or energy cannot be created or destroyed, we can see it being recycled over and over to sustain life, just as a terrarium can sustain life even in an enclosed space. 6. We occasionally experience disturbances in our country that cause changes, such as those caused by major calamities such as floods, typhoons, volcanic eruptions, wildfires, and so on. It can actually be natural, human-caused, or both. Although it may appear destructive, disturbances are not always a bad thing because there are times when it can cause positive change like, for example, increase biodiversity.
