GEC 10 – Environmental Science
PRELIM REVIEWER
INTRODUCTION
What is Environmental Science?
> The Environment is everything around us. It includes all the
living and non-living things we interact with.
Environmental Science is an interdisciplinary study of how
humans interact with things. It involves natural sciences
(chemistry, biology, ecology, geology, physics), social
sciences, (geography, economics, political science,
anthropology, and demography), and humanities (philosophy,
and ethics).
The goals of Environmental Science are:
a. Learn how nature works
b. Learn how the environment affects us
c. Learn how we affect the environment
d. Learn how to deal with environmental problems and
live more sustainably.
Noted: We should not confuse environmental science with
Environmentalism – a social movement dedicated to
protecting the earth’s life-support systems for us and all other
forms of life.
SUSTAINABILITY
The ability of the earth’s various natural systems and human
cultural systems and economies to survive and adapt to
changing environmental conditions indefinitely.
It is the central theme of this course.
NATURAL CAPITAL = NATURAL RESOURCES + NATURAL
SERVICES
NATURAL CAPITAL – natural resources and natural services
that keep us and other forms of life alive and support our
economies.
NATURAL RESOURCES – are materials and energy in nature
that are essential or useful to humans.
2 Classifications RENEWABLE and NON-RENEWABLE
Renewable – air, water, soil, plants, and wind etc.
Nonrenewable – copper, oil, coal, etc.
NATURAL SERVICES – functions of nature that support life
and human economies. (purification of air and water, which
ecosystems provide us with no cost).
4 Components of SUSTAINABILITY
1) NUTRIENT RECYCLING
Cycling of organic matter
2) NATURAL CAPITAL DEGRADATION
Human activities using renewable resources faster than they
can be replenished
3) SEARCH FOR SCIENTIFIC SOLUTIONS
Reduce degradation of natural capital
4) TRADE-OFFS/COMPROMISES
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Reach an understanding of resource management
Examples of Degradation of Natural Capital
 Air Pollution
 Global Warming
 Soil Erosion
 Aquifer Depletion
 Shrinking Forest
 Decreased Wildlife Habitats
 Species Extinction
 Declining Ocean Fisheries
 Water Pollution
Our Ecological Footprint
Is the amount of biologically productive land and water needed
to supply the people in a particular country or area with
resources and to absorb and recycle the wastes and pollution
produced by such resource use.
Pollution
Anything harmful to the health, survival, or activities of
humans or other organisms is considered pollution.
Humans produce two types of pollution:
> Point Source
Are single, identifiable sources of pollution.
Examples:
The smokestack of a coal-burning power or industrial plant,
the exhaust pipe of an automobile, and the drainpipe of a
factory.
> Nonpoint Source
Are dispersed and often difficult to identify.
Examples:
Pesticides are blown from the land into the air and runoff of
fertilizers and pesticides from farmlands, lawns, gardens, and
golf courses into streams and lakes.
2 Main Types:
Biodegradable – harmful materials that can be broken down
by natural processes. Examples are sewage and newspapers.
Nondegradable – harmful materials that natural processes
cannot break down. Examples are lead, mercury, and arsenic.
Note: Pollutants can have 3 types of unwanted effects.
1) Disrupt or degrade life-support systems
2) Damage to wildlife, human health, and property
3) Create nuisances such as noise and unpleasant
smells, tastes, and sights
Clean up Pollution or Prevent it
Pollution cleanup or output pollution control involves cleaning
up or diluting pollutants after they have been produced.
Pollution prevention or input pollution control reduces or
eliminates the production of pollutants.
 3 Problems of Clean up
1) Only a temporary bandage as long as population and
consumption levels grow without corresponding
improvements in pollution control technology
2) Often removes one pollutant from one part of the
environment only to cause pollution in another
3) Once pollutants become dispersed into the environment
it either costs too much to clean them up or is near
impossible to reduce them to acceptable levels
5 Basic Causes of Environmental Problems
Living things can be found almost everywhere including every
hot and cold place as well as the deep ocean.
Ecosystem - Includes all living and non-living parts of the
environment as well as the interactions among them.
Biotic Factors - Living parts of an ecosystem, which includes
remains and wastes.
Abiotic Factors -Non-living parts of an ecosystem, which
include light, temperature, weather, soil, and water.
Notes:

1) Population Growth > Abiotic factors determine which organisms can live in an
2) Unsustainable resource use ecosystem.
3) Poverty
4) Excluding environmental costs from market prices > Ecosystems contain different habitats (the place where an
5) Trying to manage nature without knowing enough about organism lives, and supplies all of the biotic and abiotic factors
it an organism needs to survive)

> Different organisms need different habitats.

Different Views of Environmental Problems
> Habitats all supply the same basic needs such as air,
a. Environmental Worldview – a set of assumptions and warmth, water, and food.
values reflecting how you think the world works and what
you think your role in the world should be. Niche

> How an organism acts within its ecosystem

Examples:
> Another way to look at this is the organism's role
Planetary Management Worldview - Humans are separate
from nature, nature exists for our needs. > Some animals eat other animals, and some eat plants.

> Some plants grow in sunny areas, some need shade.

Stewardship Worldview - Humans can and should manage the
earth for our benefit.
Environmental Wisdom Worldview - Humans are part of, and
totally dependent on, nature and nature exists for all species,
not just for us.
> Worms and bacteria break down dead organisms for energy
and recycle the nutrients into the ecosystem
> This creates Biodiversity - the variety of life in the world or
in a particular habitat or ecosystem.

Levels of Organization
b. Environmental Ethics – our beliefs about what is right and
wrong with how we treat the environment. An organism is any living thing - this is the simplest level of
organization
4 Scientific Principles of Sustainability
Species – a group of organisms that share most
1) Reliance on Solar Energy characteristics and can breed with one another.
2) Biodiversity Population – all organisms of a species that live in the same
3) Nutrient Cycling place at the same time / members of a population compete
with each other for resources for survival
4) Population Control
Community – all of the populations that live in an area at the
ECOSYSTEMS same time

Understand how organisms interact with and respond to the Ecosystem – one or more communities and their nonliving
biotic and abiotic components of their environment. environment

Biotic and Abiotic Factors Limiting Factors

All Earthly organisms are found in the Biosphere, which > Conditions of the environment that limit the growth of a
includes: species.

> Land > Biotic and abiotic factors that prevent the continuous growth
of a population.
> Water
> Populations would continue to increase if they had all of the
> Lowest part of the atmosphere resources they require in unlimited amounts, but there are
always factors that limit their increase.

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 Producers, Consumers, and Decomposers

> Limiting factors control population growth. PRODUCERS

Carrying Capacity > An organism that produces its own food

> Because of these limiting factors, each ecosystem has a
finite capacity for growth connected to its carrying capacity.
> Carrying capacity is the number of individuals of a species
that an ecosystem can support.
> Also called Autotrophs
> Includes plants, algae, and bacteria
> Many make food through photosynthesis

2 Types of Limiting Factors > Uses light energy to combine carbon dioxide and water to
produce glucose and oxygen
1) Density-dependent
CONSUMERS
include disease, competition, predators, parasites, and food
> Organisms that cannot make their own food
2) Density-independent
> Also called Heterotrophs
factors can affect all populations, regardless of their density
> All animals are consumers
Examples: abiotic factors, such as temperature, storms,
floods, drought, and major habitat disruption > Some eat producers

Symbiosis > Some eat other consumers

Close relationship between two different species of organisms First-order Consumer – Feeds directly on producers
living together. Second-order Consumer – Feeds on first-order consumers
> Mutualism Third-order Consumer – Feeds on second-order consumers
Relationship in which both species benefit. DECOMPOSERS
> Commensalism > An organism that gets energy by breaking down the remains
Relationship where one species benefits without benefiting or of dead organisms and the wastes of living things.
harming the other species. > Another kind of Heterotroph
> Parasitism > Most fungi and bacteria fall into this category
Relationship between a parasite and its host. > Earthworms and insects also
a. Parasite > They are often called nature’s recyclers
An organism that lives on or in another organism and
> They return carbon and nitrogen to the air and soil
benefits at the other organism's expense

b. Host Food Chains and Food Webs

An organism that a parasite lives on or in Trophic Level

> Predation > Each feeding level in an ecosystem

Relationship in which one animal hunts, kills, and eats > Producers make up the first level
another.
> Consumers at each level get energy by feeding on
ECOSYSTEMS
organisms at a lower level
3 Main Categories
Food Chain
1) Terrestrial – on land (forest, deserts, grasslands)
> A series of organisms in which each feed on the one at the
2) Freshwater – also found on land (rivers, lakes, and next lower level.
wetlands)
Noted: Decomposers break down the remains and wastes of
3) Marine – in the ocean (wherever there is salt water)
all organisms in the chain.

Feeding Relationships > Food chains show only one path for the flow of energy

> Organisms need energy for cells to function. > Feeding relationships are more complicated.

> Because of this need for energy, organisms are connected Food Web
by feeding relationships.
> Network of interconnected food chains in an ecosystem

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Notes: > Usually found in animal waste such as urine

> Not all the energy from one trophic level is transferred to the > Fertilizers also contain nitrogen
next level.
Dentrification
> This is called an Energy Pyramid - graphical representation
of the trophic levels (nutritional) by which the incoming > Takes the nitrogen from nitrates and other compounds in the
solar energy is transferred into an ecosystem. soil and releases it as nitrogen gas

> Organisms at each level use some of the energy to carry out 3) Water
life processes. > The continuous movement of water between Earth’s surface
> They release some into the environment as heat and its atmosphere.

> Some are stored in the organisms like bones and teeth > Water changes from one form to another

> Some parts cannot be decomposed/consumed > The sun is the source of energy for this process

> Only about 10% of the energy at one level is passed to the Evaporation
next > Process where liquid changes to gas
The Cycling of Matter in Ecosystems Transpiration
> The Earth constantly receives energy from the sun. Because > Water vapor is released through tiny openings in plant
of this, the amount of matter does not change, just its form on leaves
earth. Matter is recycled from organisms to the environment
and back again. > Animals also add water vapor to the atmosphere through
breathing
There are three main cycles:
Condensation
1) Carbon
> The process by which gas changes to a liquid
> Carbon moves among the air, the ground, and the
plants/animals Precipitation

> Carbon is found in all living organisms > Water that falls to the Earth’s surface in the form of rain,
snow, sleet, or hail
> Also found in the atmosphere, gasoline and many rocks
Groundwater
Carbon stored in organisms cannot be reused until the
organism is eaten or decomposed. > Water located below the Earth’s surface

Decomposition Runoff

> Bacteria or other decomposers break down dead organisms > Draining away water (or substances carried in it) from the
surface of an area of land, a building or structure, etc.
> Carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere in this
process

Combustion (burning) is also part of this process

> Burning wood or other organic material produces large

amounts of CO2 released into the atmosphere.

2) Nitrogen

> The movement of nitrogen through the environment

> Nitrogen is found in many places in many forms

> Most are in the atmosphere as Nitrogen gas

> All living things use nitrogen to make proteins

> Most organisms cannot use it in the form of gas though.

Nitrogen Fixation

> The natural process of converting nitrogen from the

atmosphere into forms that are useful to a variety of
organisms.

> Produces compounds such as ammonia and nitrate

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