Ecology and Environment
Course Description
Ecology and the Environment is a course designed to engage students with the scientific principles, concepts, and methodologies required to understand the interrelationships within the natural world. The course requires that students identify and analyze natural and human-made environmental problems, evaluate the relative risks associated with these problems, and examine alternative solutions for resolving or preventing them. This course is interdisciplinary, embracing topics from geology, biology (ecology), environmental studies, environmental science, chemistry, and geography.
Course Big Ideas
- Energy conversions underlie all ecological processes. Energy cannot be created; it must come from somewhere. As energy flows through systems, at each step, more of it becomes unusable.
- The Earth is one interconnected system. Natural systems change over time and space. Biogeochemical systems vary in ability to recover from disturbances.
- Humans alter natural systems and have had an impact on the environment for millions of years. Technology and population growth have enabled humans to increase both the rate and scale of their impact on the environment.
- Human survival depends on developing practices that will achieve sustainable systems. A suitable combination of conservation and development is required. The management of resources is essential. Understanding the role of cultural, social, and economic factors is vital to the development of solutions.
Course Essential Questions
- How is energy transferred through systems?
- How do natural systems change over time?
- How have humans impacted this planet over time?
- How can humans manage resources and develop solutions to solve environmental issues?
Course Competencies
- Explain environmental concepts, processes, or models in applied contexts.
- Analyze visual representations of environmental concepts and processes.
- Analyze and interpret quantitative data represented in tables, charts, and graphs.
- Apply quantitative methods to address environmental concepts.
- Propose and justify solutions to environmental problems.
Course Assessments
- Projects
- Labs
- Formal and informal assessments
Course Units
- Unit 1: Introduction to Global Environmental Problems and Sustainability
- Unit 2: United States Environmental History
- Unit 3: Ecological Principals
- Unit 4: Aquatic Ecology
- Unit 5: Energy and Air Quality
Unit 1: Introduction to Global Environmental Problems and Sustainability
- Standards
- Know
- Understanding/Key Learning
- Do
- Unit Essential Questions
- Lesson Essential Questions
- Materials/Resources
- Vocabulary
- Assessments
Standards
PA STEELS Standards
- 3.4.9-12.A Analyze and interpret how issues, trends, technologies, and policies impact agricultural, food, and environmental systems and resources.
- 3.4.9-12.B.: Apply research and analytical skills to evaluate the conditions and motivations that lead to conflict, cooperation, and change among individuals, groups, and nations.
- 3.4.9-12.D: Apply research and analytical skills to systematically investigate environmental issues ranging from local issues to those that are regional or global in scope.
- 3.4.9-12.H: Design and evaluate solutions in which individuals and societies can promote stewardship in environmental quality and community well-being.
- 3.1.9-12.N Design, evaluate, and refine a solution for reducing the impacts of human activities on the environment and biodiversity.
- 3.1.9-12.L Use mathematical representations to support and revise explanations based on evidence about factors affecting biodiversity and populations in ecosystems of different scales.
- 3.3.9-12.Q Create a computational simulation to illustrate the relationships among management of natural resources, the sustainability of human populations, and biodiversity.
- 3.3.9-12.R Evaluate or refine a technological solution that reduces the impact of human activities on natural systems.
PA Reading and Writing in Science and Technical Subjects
- CC.3.6.11-12.H. Draw evidence from informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.
- CC.3.6.11-12.F. Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question (including a self generated question) or solve a problem; narrow or broaden the inquiry when appropriate; synthesize multiple sources on the subject, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.
College Board: AP Environmental Science
- EIN-1: Human populations change in reaction to a variety of factors, including social and cultural factors.
- 1B: Explain environmental concepts and processes.
Know
- The concept of sustainability.
- The components of human population change.
- How and why ecosystems are degraded over time.
- The demographic differences between pre-industrial and industrialized countries.
- Anthropogenic activities can disrupt ecosystem services, potentially resulting in economic and ecological consequences.
- Population growth rates can be interpreted from age structure diagrams by the shape of the structure.
- Birth rates, infant mortality rates, and overall death rates, access to family planning, access to good nutrition, access to education, and postponement of marriage all affect whether a human population is growing or declining.
- The rule of 70 states that dividing the number 70 by the percentage population growth rate approximates the population’s doubling time.
- The demographic transition refers to the transition from high to lower birth and death rates in a country or region as development occurs and that country moves from a preindustrial to an industrialized economic system. This transition is typically demonstrated through a four-stage demographic transition model (DTM).
- The tragedy of the commons suggests that individuals will use shared resources in their own self-interest rather than in keeping with the common good, thereby depleting the resources.
- Ecological footprints compare resource demands and waste production required for an individual or a society.
Understanding/Key Learning
- Humans alter natural systems and have had an impact on the environment for millions of years. Technology and population growth have enabled humans to increase both the rate and scale of their impact on the environment.
- Human survival depends on developing practices that will achieve sustainable systems. A suitable combination of conservation and development is required. The management of resources is essential. Understanding the role of cultural, social, and economic factors is vital to the development of solutions.
Do
- Identify environmental problems, their root causes, and describe and propose viable solutions for environmental problems.
- Differentiate between pre-industrialized and industrialized countries by evaluating demographic information from each category.
- Describe ecosystem services and how they are or could be degraded.
- Describe the results of human disruptions to ecosystem services.
- Explain age structure diagrams.
- Explain how human populations experience growth and decline.
- Define the concept of demographic transition
- Explain the concept of the tragedy of the commons.
- Explain the variables measured in an ecological footprint.
- Explain the concept of sustainability.
- Identify differences between nonrenewable, renewable, and perpetual resources.
Unit Essential Questions
Lesson Essential Questions
- What does the term sustainability mean?
- What are ecosystem services and what value do they provide to the human economy?
- What are the five categories of environmental issues?
- How does rapid human population growth lead to environmental degradation?
- How does extreme poverty lead to environmental degradation?
- How does overconsumption lead to environmental degradation?
- How does human population growth differ between pre-industrialized and industrialized countries?
- How does the Tragedy of the Commons lead to environmental degradation?
Materials/Resources
- Country Demographic Comparison Lab Activity
- “World in the Balance” video
- Tragedy of the Commons simulation activity
- “The Story of Stuff” video
- “The Story of Solutions” video
- Textbook, “Environmental Science” by Miller and Spoolman. 13th ed.
- College Board AP Environmental Science Resources
- Other relevant material and online resources, as needed
Vocabulary
- Environmental science
- natural capital
- ecosystem services
- perpetual resource
- Ecology
- renewable resource
- nonrenewable resources
- environmental degradation
- Natural resource
- exponential growth
- linear growth
- doubling time
- Per capita
- GNP
- sustainable
- Tragedy of the Commons
- Industrialized country
- Economic development
- economic growth
- GNP
- ecological footprint
- Environmental worldview
- histogram
- demographic transition
- pre-industrialized country
Assessments
Unit 2: United States Environmental History
- Standards
- Know
- Understanding/Key Learning
- Do
- Unit Essential Questions
- Lesson Essential Questions
- Materials/Resources
- Vocabulary
- Assessments
Standards
PA STEELS Standards
- 3.4.9-12.G Analyze and evaluate how best resource management practices and environmental laws achieve sustainability of natural resources.
PA Reading and Writing in Science and Technical Subjects
- CC.3.6.11-12.H. Draw evidence from informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.
Know
- The required environmental policies and legislation for the AP Environmental Course as they relate to solutions to environmental problems.
- How resource use changed as society moved from hunter/gatherers through the agricultural revolution and again through the industrial revolution.
- Persons who have shaped our country environmentally.
- Events that have shaped our country environmentally.
- Bioaccumulation is the selective absorption and concentration of elements or compounds by cells in a living organism, most commonly fat-soluble compounds.
- Biomagnification is the increase in concentration of substances per unit of body tissue that occurs in successively higher trophic levels of a food chain or in a food web.
- Some effects that can occur in an ecosystem when a persistent substance is biomagnified in a food chain include eggshell thinning and developmental deformities in top carnivores of the higher trophic levels.
- DDT, mercury, and PCBs are substances that bioaccumulate and have significant environmental impacts.
- Strategies to protect animal populations include criminalizing poaching, protecting animal habitats, and legislation.
Understanding/Key Learning
- Humans alter natural systems and have had an impact on the environment for millions of years. Technology and population growth have enabled humans to increase both the rate and scale of their impact on the environment.
- Human survival depends on developing practices that will achieve sustainable systems. A suitable combination of conservation and development is required. The management of resources is essential. Understanding the role of cultural, social, and economic factors is vital to the development of solutions.
Do
- Examine the history of natural resource use in the United States.
- Describe events that have shaped our country environmentally.
- Describe the role that certain individuals have played in changing our country environmentally.
- Investigate the reasons for the creation of major environmental legislation in the US.
- Assess the effectiveness of certain pieces of environmental legislation.
- Describe bioaccumulation and biomagnification.
- Describe the effects of bioaccumulation and biomagnification.
- Explain how species become endangered and strategies to combat the problem.
Unit Essential Questions
Lesson Essential Questions
- How does resource use change as cultural changes occur in North America?
- What impact did Rachel Carson have on our country environmentally?
- How did Aldo Leopold influence our country environmentally?
- How did certain environmental disasters lead to specific pieces of environmental legislation?
- How effective have certain pieces of environmental legislation been?
Materials/Resources
Vocabulary
Assessments
Unit 3: Ecological Principals
- Standards
- Know
- Understanding/Key Learning
- Do
- Unit Essential Questions
- Lesson Essential Questions
- Materials/Resources
- Vocabulary
- Assessments
Standards
PA STEELS Standards
- 3.4.9-12.E: Plan and conduct an investigation utilizing environmental data about a local environmental issue.
- 3.1.9-12.M Evaluate the claims, evidence, and reasoning that the complex interactions in ecosystems maintain relatively consistent numbers and types of organisms in stable conditions, but changing conditions may result in a new ecosystem.
- 3.1.9-12.H Use mathematical representations to support claims for the cycling of matter and flow of energy among organisms in an ecosystem.
- 3.1.9-12.I Use mathematical and/or computational representations to support explanations of factors that affect carrying capacity of ecosystems at different scales.
- 3.1.9-12.M Evaluate the claims, evidence, and reasoning that the complex interactions in ecosystems maintain relatively consistent numbers and types of organisms in stable conditions, but changing conditions may result in a new ecosystem.
PA Reading and Writing in Science and Technical Subjects
- CC.3.6.11-12.H. Draw evidence from informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.
College Board: AP Environmental Science
- 1A and 1B: Describe and explain environmental concepts and processes.
- EIN-2 When humans use natural resources, they alter natural systems.
Know
- In a predator-prey relationship, the predator is an organism that eats another organism (the prey).
- Symbiosis is a close and long-term interaction between two species in an ecosystem. Types of symbiosis include mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism.
- Competition can occur within or between species in an ecosystem where there are limited resources. Resource partitioning— using the resources in different ways, places, or at different times—can reduce the negative impact of competition on survival.
- A biome contains characteristic communities of plants and animals that result from, and are adapted to, its climate.
- The carbon cycle is the movement of atoms and molecules containing the element carbon between sources and sinks.
- The nitrogen cycle is the movement of atoms and molecules containing the element nitrogen between sources and sinks.
- Primary productivity is the rate at which solar energy (sunlight) is converted into organic compounds via photosynthesis over a unit of time.
- All ecosystems depend on a continuous inflow of high-quality energy in order to maintain their structure and function of transferring matter between the environment and organisms via biogeochemical cycles.
- The 10% rule approximates that in the transfer of energy from one trophic level to the next, only about 10% of the energy is passed on.
- Biodiversity in an ecosystem includes genetic, species, and habitat diversity.
- Ecosystems that have a larger number of species are more likely to recover from disruptions.
- Species richness refers to the number of different species found in an ecosystem.
- There are two main types of ecological succession: primary and secondary succession.
- A keystone species in an ecosystem is a species whose activities have a particularly significant role in determining community structure.
- An indicator species is a plant or animal that, by its presence, abundance, scarcity, or chemical composition, demonstrates that some distinctive aspect of the character or quality of an ecosystem is present.
- Biotic potential refers to the maximum reproductive rate of a population in ideal conditions.
- K-selected species tend to be large, have few offspring per reproduction event, live in stable environments, expend significant energy for each offspring, mature after many years of extended youth and parental care, have long life spans/life expectancy, and reproduce more than once in their lifetime. Competition for resources in K-selected species’ habitats is usually relatively high.
- r-selected species tend to be small, have many offspring, expend or invest minimal energy for each offspring, mature early, have short life spans, and may reproduce only once in their lifetime. Competition for resources in r-selected species’ habitats is typically relatively low.
- Survivorship curves differ for K-selected and r-selected species, with K-selected species typically following a Type I or Type II curve and r-selected species following a Type III curve.
- When a population exceeds its carrying capacity (carrying capacity can be denoted as K), overshoot occurs. There are environmental impacts of population overshoot, including resource depletion.
- Population growth is limited by environmental factors, especially by the available resources and space.
- Invasive species are species that can live, and sometimes thrive, outside of their normal habitat. Invasive species can sometimes be beneficial, but they are considered invasive when they threaten native species.
- Invasive species are often generalist, r-selected species and therefore may outcompete native species for resources.
- Invasive species can be controlled through a variety of human interventions.
- Specialist species tend to be advantaged in habitats that remain constant, while generalist species tend to be advantaged in habitats that are changing.
Understanding/Key Learning
- Energy conversions underlie all ecological processes. Energy cannot be created; it must come from somewhere. As energy flows through systems, at each step, more of it becomes unusable.
- The Earth is one interconnected system. Natural systems change over time and space. Biogeochemical systems vary in ability to recover from disturbances.
Do
- Explain how the availability of resources influences species interactions.
- Describe the global distribution and principal environmental aspects of terrestrial biomes.
- Explain the steps and reservoir interactions in the carbon cycle.
- Explain the steps and reservoir interactions in the nitrogen cycle.
- Explain how energy flows and matter cycles through trophic levels.
- Determine how the energy decreases as it flows through ecosystems.
- Describe food chains and food webs, and their constituent members by trophic level.
- Explain levels of biodiversity and their importance to ecosystems.
- Describe ecological succession.
- Identify differences between K- and r-selected species.
- Explain survivorship curves.
- Describe carrying capacity.
- Describe the impact of carrying capacity on ecosystems.
- Explain the environmental problems associated with invasive species and strategies to control them.
- Determine population size of both non moving and moving organisms.
- Identify differences between generalist and specialist species.
Unit Essential Questions
- How does the one way flow of energy from the sun, gravity, and the cycling of matter allow for life to exist on this planet?
- How are population dynamics determined for both moving and nonmoving species?
- How is biological diversity an indicator of a healthy ecosystem?
- How do species interact with members of their own species and with members of other species?
- What keeps populations from increasing in size exponentially?
- How do humans influence change in ecosystems over time?
Lesson Essential Questions
Materials/Resources
- Lab activities (both inside and outside)
- ecosystem field walk
- belt transect activity
- quadrat study
- capture/mark/recapture activity
- resource partitioning activity
- energy flow activity
- predator/prey activity
- Textbook, “Environmental Science” by Miller and Spoolman. 13th ed.
- College Board AP Environmental Science Resources
- Other relevant material and online resources, as needed
Vocabulary
- Atmosphere
- Biome Species Abiotic
- Secondary consumer trophic level
- Biogeochemical cycles
- Nitrogen fixation
- Biodiversity
- Ecological niche
- Nonnative species K-selected species
- Intraspecific competition
- Symbiotic relationship
- Biotic potential
- Density dependent limiting
- Abundance
- Ecological succession
- lithosphere
- ecosystem
- organism
- producer
- tertiary
- consumer
- biomass
- hydrologic cycle
- nitrification
- species richness
- generalist
- indicator species
- r-selected species
- resource partitioning
- mutualism
- environmental resistance
- g factor
- frequency
- primary succession
- hydrosphere
- biosphere
- community
- population
- ecology
- biotic
- consumer
- primary consumer
- food chain
- food web
- net primary productivity
- nitrogen cycle
- carbon cycle
- denitrification
- carbon sink
- species evenness
- species diversity
- specialist
- native species
- keystone species
- foundation species
- interspecific competition
- predation
- parasitism
- commensalism
- epiphytes
- carrying capacity
- limiting factor
- density independent
- limiting factor
- coverage
- importance value
- secondary succession pioneer species
Assessments
Unit 4: Aquatic Ecology
- Standards
- Know
- Understanding/Key Learning
- Do
- Unit Essential Questions
- Lesson Essential Questions
- Materials/Resources
- Vocabulary
- Assessments
Standards
PA STEELS Standards
- 3.4.9-12.C Analyze and interpret how issues, trends, technologies, and policies impact watersheds and water resources.
- 3.4.9-12.E Plan and conduct an investigation utilizing environmental data about a local environmental issue.
PA Reading and Writing in Science and Technical Subjects
- CC.3.6.11-12.H. Draw evidence from informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.
College Board: AP Environmental Science
- STB-3 Human activities, including the use of resources, have physical, chemical, and biological consequences for ecosystems.
- STB-1 Humans can mitigate their impact on land and water resources through sustainable use.
Know
- Freshwater biomes include streams, rivers, ponds, and lakes. These freshwater biomes are a vital resource for drinking water.
- Marine biomes include oceans, coral reefs, marshland, and estuaries. Algae in marine biomes supply a large portion of the Earth’s oxygen, and also take in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
- The global distribution of nonmineral marine natural resources, such as different types of fish, varies because of some combination of salinity, depth, turbidity, nutrient availability, and temperature.
- The hydrologic cycle, which is powered by the sun, is the movement of water in its various solid, liquid, and gaseous phases between sources and sinks.
- The oceans are the primary reservoir of water at the Earth’s surface, with ice caps and groundwater acting as much smaller reservoirs.
- Characteristics of a given watershed include its area, length, slope, soil, vegetation types, and divides with adjoining watersheds.
- Agricultural practices that can cause environmental damage include tilling, slash and-burn farming, and the use of fertilizers.
- Aquifers can be severely depleted if overused for agricultural irrigation, as has happened to the Ogallala Aquifer in the central United States.
- Urbanization can lead to depletion of resources and saltwater intrusion in the hydrologic cycle.
- Impervious surfaces are human-made structures—such as roads, buildings, sidewalks, and parking lots—that do not allow water to reach the soil, leading to flooding.
- Methods to increase water infiltration include replacing traditional pavement with permeable pavement, planting trees, increased use of public transportation, and building up, not out.
- A point source refers to a single, identifiable source of a pollutant, such as a smokestack or waste discharge pipe.
- Nonpoint sources of pollution are diffused and can therefore be difficult to identify, such as pesticide spraying or urban runoff.
- Organisms have a range of tolerance for various pollutants. Organisms have an optimum range for each factor where they can maintain homeostasis. Outside of this range, organisms may experience physiological stress, limited growth, reduced reproduction, and in extreme cases, death.
- Increased sediment in waterways can reduce light infiltration, which can affect primary producers and visual predators. Sediment can also settle, disrupting habitats.
- Eutrophication occurs when a body of water is enriched in nutrients.
- The increase in nutrients in eutrophic aquatic environments causes an algal bloom. When the algal bloom dies, microbes digest the algae, along with the oxygen in the water, leading to a decrease in the dissolved oxygen levels in the water. The lack of dissolved oxygen can result in large die-offs of fish and other aquatic organisms.
- Hypoxic waterways are those bodies of water that are low in dissolved oxygen.
- Compared to eutrophic waterways, oligotrophic waterways have very low amounts of nutrients, stable algae populations, and high dissolved oxygen.
- Anthropogenic causes of eutrophication are agricultural runoff and wastewater release.
- Variations in water temperature affect the concentration of dissolved oxygen because warm water does not contain as much oxygen as cold water.
Understanding/Key Learning
- The Earth is one interconnected system. Natural systems change over time and space. Biogeochemical systems vary in ability to recover from disturbances.
- Humans alter natural systems and have had an impact on the environment for millions of years. Technology and population growth have enabled humans to increase both the rate and scale of their impact on the environment.
- Human survival depends on developing practices that will achieve sustainable systems. A suitable combination of conservation and development is required. The management of resources is essential. Understanding the role of cultural, social, and economic factors is vital to the development of solutions.
Do
- Describe the global distribution and principal environmental aspects of aquatic biomes.
- Explain the steps and reservoir interactions in the hydrologic cycle.
- Describe the characteristics of a watershed.
- Describe agricultural practices that cause environmental damage.
- Describe the effects of urbanization on the environment.
- Describe methods for mitigating problems related to urban runoff.
- Identify differences between point and nonpoint sources of pollution.
- Describe the impacts of human activities on aquatic ecosystems.
- Explain the environmental effects of excessive use of fertilizers and detergents on aquatic ecosystems.
- Describe the effects of thermal pollution on aquatic ecosystems.
Unit Essential Questions
Lesson Essential Questions
- Differentiate between lentic and lotic aquatic systems?
- How does land use influence the physical properties of freshwater systems?
- How do you measure stormwater runoff?
- What are the physical properties of the Codorus creek, behind the school?
- What are the chemical properties of the Codorus creek, behind the school?
- What are the biological properties of the Codorus creek, behind the school?
- What ecosystem services do wetlands provide both the natural and human economy?
Materials/Resources
- Lab activities (both inside and outside)
- Storm water runoff activity
- How to measure stream flow activity
- Science take out “Pollution Investigation” activity
- The chemistry of a creek lab activity
- eutrophication lab activity
- benthic macroinvertebrate lab activity
- “Poisoned Water: The Flint Michigan Story” Video
- Textbook, “Environmental Science” by Miller and Spoolman. 13th ed.
- College Board AP Environmental Science Resources
- Other relevant material and online resources, as needed
Vocabulary
- Watershed
- lentic
- lotic
- oligotrophic
- Eutrophication
- mesotrophic
- littoral
- limnetic
- Profundal
- benthic
- cultural eutrophication
- Dissolved oxygen
- biological oxygen demand
- hypoxi
- alkalinity
- Point source pollution
- nonpoint source pollution
- acid mine drainage
- sedimentation
- Algal bloom
- dead zone
- storm water runoff estuary
- Benthic macroinvertebrate
- aquifer
- complete metamorphosis
- Incomplete metamorphosis
- anadromous
- catadromous
- Plankton
- Swamp
- phytoplankton
- marsh
- zooplankton
- bog
- wetland
- vernal pool
Assessments
Unit 5: Energy and Air Quality
- Standards
- Know
- Understanding/Key Learning
- Do
- Unit Essential Questions
- Lesson Essential Questions
- Materials/Resources
- Vocabulary
- Assessments
Standards
PA STEELS Standards
- 3.4.9-12.I Analyze and interpret data on a regional environmental condition and its implications on environmental justice and social equity.
- 3.4.9-12.A Analyze and interpret how issues, trends, technologies, and policies impact agricultural, food, and environmental systems and resources.
- 3.4.9-12.H Design and evaluate solutions in which individuals and societies can promote stewardship in environmental quality and community well-being.
- 3.4.9-12.G Analyze and evaluate how best resource management practices and environmental laws achieve sustainability of natural resources.
- 3.4.9-12.D Apply research and analytical skills to systematically investigate environmental issues ranging from local issues to those that are regional or global in scope.
- 3.4.9-12.B Apply research and analytical skills to evaluate the conditions and motivations that lead to conflict, cooperation, and change among individuals, groups, and nations.
- 3.4.9-12.G Analyze and evaluate how best resource management practices and environmental laws achieve sustainability of natural resources.
PA Reading and Writing in Science and Technical Subjects
- CC.3.6.11-12.H. Draw evidence from informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research
College Board: AP Environmental Science
- ERT-2 Ecosystems have structure and diversity that change over time.
- ENG-3 Humans use energy from a variety of sources, resulting in positive and negative consequences.
- STB-2 Human activities have physical, chemical, and biological consequences for the atmosphere.
- STB-4 Local and regional human activities can have impacts at the global level.
Know
- Natural disruptions to ecosystems have environmental consequences that may, for a given occurrence, be as great as, or greater than, many human-made disruptions.
- Earth’s climate has changed over geological time for many reasons.
- The atmosphere is made up of major gasses, each with its own relative abundance.
- The layers of the atmosphere are based on temperature gradients and include the troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere, and exosphere.
- As the world becomes more industrialized, the demand for energy increases.
- As developing countries become more developed, their reliance on fossil fuels for energy increases.
- The use of energy resources is not evenly distributed between developed and developing countries.
- Energy from fossil fuels is produced by burning those fuels to generate heat, which then turns water into steam. That steam turns a turbine, which generates electricity.
- Coal combustion releases air pollutants including carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, toxic metals, and particulates.
- The combustion of fossil fuels releases nitrogen oxides into the atmosphere. They lead to the production of ozone, formation of photochemical smog, and convert to nitric acid in the atmosphere, causing acid rain. Other pollutants produced by fossil fuel combustion include carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, and particulate matter.
- Through the Clean Air Act, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulated the use of lead, particularly in fuels, which dramatically decreased the amount of lead in the atmosphere.
- CO2 appears naturally in the atmosphere from sources such as respiration, decomposition, and volcanic eruptions.
- Acid rain and deposition is due to nitrogen oxides and sulfur oxides from anthropogenic and natural sources in the atmosphere.
- Nitric oxides that cause acid deposition come from motor vehicles and coal-burning power plants. Sulfur dioxides that cause acid deposition come from coal-burning power plants.
- Acid rain and deposition can lead to the acidification of soils and bodies of water and corrosion of human-made structures.
- Regional differences in soils and bedrock affect the impact that acid deposition has on the region—such as limestone bedrock’s ability to neutralize the effect of acid rain on lakes and ponds.
- Stratospheric ozone depletion is caused by anthropogenic factors, such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), and natural factors, such as the melting of ice crystals in the atmosphere at the beginning of the Antarctic spring.
- The principal greenhouse gasses are carbon dioxide, methane, water vapor, nitrous oxide, and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).
- The greenhouse effect results in the surface temperature necessary for life on Earth to exist.
- Global climate change, caused by excess greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, can lead to a variety of environmental problems including rising sea levels resulting from melting ice sheets and ocean water expansion, and disease vectors spreading from the tropics toward the poles. These problems can lead to changes in population dynamics and population movements in response.
- The Earth has undergone climate change throughout geologic time, with major shifts in global temperatures causing periods of warming and cooling as recorded with CO2 data and ice cores.
- Effects of climate change include rising temperatures, melting permafrost and sea ice, rising sea levels, and displacement of coastal populations.
Understanding/Key Learning
- The Earth is one interconnected system. Natural systems change over time and space. Biogeochemical systems vary in ability to recover from disturbances
- Humans alter natural systems and have had an impact on the environment for millions of years. Technology and population growth have enabled humans to increase both the rate and scale of their impact on the environment.
- Human survival depends on developing practices that will achieve sustainable systems. A suitable combination of conservation and development is required. The management of resources is essential. Understanding the role of cultural, social, and economic factors is vital to the development of solutions.
Do
- Explain the steps and reservoir interactions in the carbon cycle.
- Explain how natural disruptions, both short and long-term, impact an ecosystem.
- Describe the structure and composition of the Earth’s atmosphere.
- Describe trends in energy consumption.
- Describe the use and methods of fossil fuels in power generation.
- Describe the effects of fossil fuels on the environment.
- Describe the use of nuclear energy in power generation.
- Describe the effects of the use of nuclear energy on the environment.
- Describe the use of hydroelectricity in power generation.
- Describe the effects of the use of hydroelectricity in power generation on the environment.
- Describe the use of geothermal energy in power generation.
- Describe the effects of the use of geothermal energy in power generation on the environment.
- Describe the use of wind energy in power generation.
- Describe the effects of the use of wind energy in power generation on the environment.
- Describe methods for conserving energy.
- Identify the sources and effects of air pollutants.
- Describe natural sources of CO2 and particulates.
- Describe acid deposition.
- Describe the effects of acid deposition on the environment.
- Explain the importance of stratospheric ozone to life on Earth.
- Identify the greenhouse gasses.
- Identify the threats to human health and the environment posed by an increase in greenhouse gasses.
- Explain how changes in climate, both short- and long term, impact ecosystems.
Unit Essential Questions
Lesson Essential Questions
- What are the parts of the atmosphere and what gasses are found within it?
- How does the stratospheric ozone layer function?
- How does the greenhouse effect operate?
- What are the main sources of energy that we as a global community utilize?
- How does our energy consumption influence atmospheric processes?
- What alternative energy sources exist and how beneficial are they?
- What is acid deposition and what are the causes of it?
- How has the climate changed over time and what are the reasons for change?
- How can humans mitigate changes to atmospheric processes?