AP Environmental Science
Name_____________________________________
Period 3 5 8 Date_____________
Chapter 1: Understanding our Environment Guided Reading
Sections 1.1 through 1.5 (pp. 12-29)
Please answer the questions listed below:
Case Study: China’s Green Future? Complete the table below using info from the textbook (p.13)
State the environmental issue
below:
China’s Green Future Case Study Template
List 3 environmental effects and/or What is being done to resolve
consequences from this problem?
the issue?
Chapter 1.1: What is Environmental Science?
1. How are present day consumers different than early-day consumers?
2. Define:
a. Environment:
b. Environmental science:
3. As Barbara Ward, a distinguished economist, stated that “…the difficulty (of environmental issues)
is not to identify remedies.” What do we need to do to make an change and explain.
4. As you study environmental science, state the 4 key goals that will assist you in understanding
world environmntalism (put in your own words):
Chapter 1.2: Current Conditions
5. State examples that support the phrase “rich diversity of life”:
6. What is our current human population and how fast is it growing? Describe the impact on the
environment from increasing populations?
7. Briefly describe how these critical resources of the environment are being affected by increasing
human populations:
Critical Resources
Endangered
1. Clean Water
Brief description:
2. Energy
3. Climate Change
4. Air Pollution
5. Biodiversity Loss
8. Briefly describe several of the positive changes brought on by “environmentalism”:
Positive Changes in
Brief description:
Environment
1. Health
2. Habitat Conservation
3. Renewable Energy
4. Freedom of Information
5. International
Cooperation
Chapter 1-3 Brief History on Conservation and Environmentalism
9. Create a time line of the environmentalists and their contributions on a separate sheet of paper,
including Plato, Pierre Poivre, George Perkins Marsh, President Teddy Roosevelt, Giffort Pinchot, John
Muir, Aldo Leopold, William Brewster, George Bird Grinnell, Rachel Carson, David Browser, Barry
Commoner, Wangari Maathal (see example below). Look within Section 1-3 for their overall
contributions. You could use 3x5” notecards taped together to create this time line.
4th century BC
Plato
Trees cut down to
build houses &
ships, rain washed
away land into the
sea leaving a rocky,
unfarmable land.
10. Teddy Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot coined the term “utilitarian conservation”-describe what is
meant by this philosophy.
11. State how John Muir and Aldo Leopold philosophies shaped “environmentalism”:
12. What did Rachel Carson publicize about pollution?
13. How did Barry Commoner support Rachel Carson in her endeavor to promote environmentalism?
14. How are social justice and environmentalism linked? Give an example.
15. Give and example of how “global environmentalism” is currently working?
16. What is extreme poverty and why should we care?
17. How much difference is there in “per capita income, infant mortality and carbon dioxide
production” between the poorest countries and the wealthiest nations?
18. Why should be worried about economic growth in China?
Section 1.5 Sustainable Development
19. Describe sustainable development and its importance in environmentalism.
20. Using Figure 1.16, explain how increasing wealth affects the three kinds of pollution shown. Why
do the trends differ?
21. What would it take to abolish extreme poverty over the next 20 years?
22. Why are native people important as guardians of nature?