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Definition
| all the living and nonliving things around us with which we interact. |
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Definition
| the study of how the natural world works, how our environment affects us, and how we affect our environment. |
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Definition
| the various substances and energy sources we need to survive. |
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Term
| renewable natural resources |
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Definition
| natural resources that are replenished over short periods. |
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Term
| nonrenewable natural resources |
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Definition
| resources that are in finite supply and are formed much more slowly than we use them; once depleted, they are no longer available. |
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Term
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Definition
| transition from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to an agricultural way of life; change began around 10,000 years ago |
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| a technique for testing ideas with observations, it involves several assumptions and a series of interrelated steps. |
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| began in the mid-1700s; shift from rural life, animal-powered agriculture, and manufacturing by craftsman, to an urban society powered by fossil fuels. |
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Definition
| nonrenewable energy sources, such as oil, coal, and natural gas. |
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Term
Thomas Malthus
(1766-1834) |
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Definition
| british economist, claimed that unless population growth was controlled by laws or other social strictures, the number of people would outgrow the available food supply until starvation, war, or disease arose and reduced the population. |
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Definition
| measures the total area of Earth's surface that a given person or population "uses" once all direct and indirect impacts are totaled up. |
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| the amount by which humanity has surpassed Earth's long term carrying for our species. |
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Definition
| disciplines that study the natural world |
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Definition
| disciplines that study human interactions and institutions |
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Definition
| an academic environmental science program that heavily incorporates the social sciences as well as the natural sciences. |
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| a social movement dedicated to protecting the natural world from undesirable changes brought about by human actions. |
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Term
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Definition
| a systematic process for learning about the world and testing our understanding of it; accumulated body of knowledge that arises from this dynamic process of observation, testing, and discovery. |
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Term
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Definition
| a statement that attempts to explain a phenomenon or answer a scientific question. |
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Term
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Definition
| specific statements that can be directly and unequivocally tested. |
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Term
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Definition
| an activity designed to test the validity of a prediction or a hypothesis. |
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Term
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Definition
| conditions that can change. |
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Term
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Definition
| a variable the scientist manipulates. |
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Term
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Definition
| the variable that is affected by manipulation of the independent variable. |
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Term
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Definition
| experiment in which the effects of all variables are held constant, except the one whose effect is being tested by comparison of treatment and control conditions. |
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Term
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Definition
| an unmanipulated point of comparison for the manipulated treatment. |
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Term
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Definition
| portion of an experiment in which a variable has been manipulated in order to test its effect. |
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Term
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Definition
| statistical relationships among variables. |
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Term
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Definition
| information, generally quantitative. |
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Term
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Definition
| experiment in which the researcher actively chooses and manipulates the independent variable. |
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Definition
| experiment in which the researcher cannot directly manipulate the variables and therefore must observe nature, comparing conditions in which variables differ, and interpret the results. |
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Definition
| deals with the distribution and abundance of organisms, the interactions among them, and the interactions between organisms and their nonliving environments. |
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Term
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Definition
| process by which the manuscript submitted for publication in an academic journal is examined by other specialists in the field, who provide comments and criticim, and judge whether the work merits publication in the journal. |
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Term
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Definition
| a widely accepted, well-tested explanation of one or more cause-and-effect relationships that had been extensively validated by a great amount of research. |
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Definition
| a dominant philosophical and theoretical framework within a scientific discipline. |
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Term
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Definition
| the sum total of all organisms in an area, taking into account the diversity of species, their genes, their populations, and their communities. |
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Term
| Millennium Ecosystem Assessment |
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Definition
| the most comprehensive scientific assessment of the present condition of the world's ecological systems and their ability to continue supporting our civilization. Prepared by over 2,000 of the world's leading environmental scientists from nearly 100 nations, and completed in 2005. |
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Term
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Definition
| guiding principle of environmental science that requires us to live in such a way as to maintain Earth's systems and its natural resources for the forseeable future. |
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Term
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Definition
| use of renewable and nonrewable resources in a manner that satisfies our current needs but does not compromise the future availability of resources. |
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Term
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Definition
| an approach to sustainability that attempts to meet environmental, economic, and social goals simultaneously. |
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