Environmental Science 101

This is one quarter, 5 units; environmental science course combines the disciplines of geology, biology, zoology, environmental science, atmospheric sciences, chemistry, geography, toxicology, and environmental economics. It provides students with the scientific principles, concepts, and methodologies required to understand the interrelationships of the natural world, to identify and analyze environmental problems (both natural and human-made), and to examine the role science and technology can play in identifying alternative solutions for resolving and/or preventing them.

Lab Exercise: Greenhouse Gases: We’ve Got Effects, Live Effects
SUMMARY In this lab, students learn how greenhouse gas concentrations affect our atmosphere and why this is important. Students investigate greenhouse gas concentrations, global warming potentials, ...
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Learning Objectives
Upon successful completion of this course, students should:
- Understand basic environmental issues ranging from global population growth, managing resources, conservation, economics, human pathology, politics and personal ethics.
- Understand scientific processes, scientific methodology, and scientific validity.
- Evaluate resource management techniques from a local perspective.
- Evaluate resource management techniques from a global perspective.
- Evaluate global environmental issues and its relationships on the world’s diverse cultures.
- Recognize the principles of inter-relationships between living organisms within ecosystems and explain the impact of human activity on these relationships.
- Be able to compare possible solutions, constrictive ideas and new approaches to many of environmental problems and the difficulties inherent in carrying these solutions.
- Research an environmental issue and present findings in a group setting.
Deep Water: The Gulf Oil Disaster and the Future of Offshore Drilling
Editor's Note: This article is excerpted directly from National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, "Deep Water: The Gulf Oil Spill and the Future of Offshore ...
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Bahamian mangroves
The Bahamian mangroves (now viewed as part of the larger Bahamoan-Antillean magroves ecoregion) are found in a large area of shallow water that is of high importance for its ecological productivity...
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Climate Change: is skepticism healthy?
A lot of questions about the reality of climate change has come up in the past 2 years. It is important to distinguish between "skepticism" and "denial"
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Marine biomes
Introduction Marine regions cover about three-fourths of the Earth's surface and include oceans, coral reefs, and estuaries. Marine algae supply much of the world's oxygen supply and take in a h...
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Grassland biome
Grasslands are characterized as lands dominated by grasses rather than large shrubs or trees. In the Miocene and Pliocene Epochs, which spanned a period of about 25 million years, mountains rose i...
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Sustainable Architecture
Presentation of Sustainable Architecture Design
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Tundra biome
The tundra biome is the coldest of all the biomes. Tundra comes from the Finnish word tunturi, meaning treeless plain. It is noted for its frost-molded landscapes, extremely low temperatures, littl...
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Desert biome
Desert biomes cover about one fifth of the Earth's surface and are defined to occur where rainfall is less than 50 centimeters (cm) per year. Although most deserts, such as the Sahara of North A...
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Deepwater Horizon: one year later (6:18)
A year has passed since the start of the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster—the largest accidental oil spill in history. Over a span of five months, a total of more than 170 million gallons of oil gu...
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Forest biome
About 420 million years ago, during the Silurian Period, ancient plants and arthropods began to occupy the land. Over the millions of years that followed, these land colonizers developed and adapte...
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History of offshore oil and gas in the United States: Part 1 (7:03)
This video discusses the history of offshore oil drilling in the United States. It will be shown at NCSE's National Conference on Science, Policy, and the Environment: Our Changing Oceans, in Washingt...
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Susan Solomon: Service to America Medalist
Susan Solomon: Service to America Medalist On September 15, 2010, in recognition of her pioneering work that altered the course of atmospheric research, NOAA senior scientist Susan Solomon was ...
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Photosynthesis
Introduction Photosynthesis is a process in plants, algae, and some prokaryotes, that coverts solar insolation into chemical energy stored in glucose or other organi...
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Deadliest U.S. mine disaster in decades due to safety failures
CNN) -- A "perfect storm was brewing" in West Virginia's Upper Big Branch coal mine in the weeks and days before a fireball tore through it on April 5, 2010, killing 29 miners and injuring one severel...
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Biodiversity
Introduction The word "biodiversity" is a contracted version of "biological diversity". The Convention on Biological Diversity defines biodiversity as:&...
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Role of biotechnology in agricultural green house gas mitigation
This article was researched and written by students at Allegheny College participating in the Encyclopedia of Earth's (EoE)Student Science Communication Project. The project encourages students in und...
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Natural selection
Introduction Natural selection Natural selection is an agent of microevolutionary change in which a population of an organism becomes better adapted to its habitat by genetic inheritance o...
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Gulf Coast oil spill HD zoom & maps (.32)
From NBC Bay Area's Rob Mayeda: Gusty winds and rough surf pushed the oil slick over some retention booms and sloshed some areas of light crude on wetlands areas in Louisiana. The majority of the...
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Biome
Biomes organize the biological communities of the earth based on similarities in the dominant vegetation, climate, geographic location, and other characteristics. Aspects of the physical environment s...
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Biodiversity and ecosystem services
Biodiversity is being threatened at an unprecedented scale by global environmental change brought about by human societies. In addition to the many moral reasons to preserve it for its own sake, ...
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Hydroelectric Power
In places such as Scandinavia, hydroelectric power provides the vast majority of renewable energy and generates most of the electricity. In developed countries, rivers that are suitable for generat...
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Carbon cycle
All life is based on the element carbon. Carbon is the major chemical constituent of most organic matter, from fossil fuels to the complex molecules (DNA and RNA) that control genetic reproduction ...
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Mid-ocean ridges
Mid-ocean ridges are a series of largely underwater mountain ranges that are present beneath many seas of the world. Mid-ocean ridges are topographic features found where divergent tectonic plate proc...
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Nitrogen cycle
The nitrogen cycle represents one of the most important nutrient cycles found in ecosystems. (Figure 1). Nitrogen is a required nutrient for all living organisms to produce a number of complex organic...
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Energy transitions past and future
Introduction In Greek mythology, Prometheus defied the will of Zeus by stealing fire and giving it to the mortal race of men in their dark caves. Zeus was enraged by Prometheus' deceit...
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Earth systems & resources
The Living World
Population
Land & water use
Pollution
Global change
Energy resources & consumption
Course Info
Student Portfolios