Choi, Alice Envi Sci AP, Per.

2 9/8/11

Chapter 1&2 Questions

Chapter 1 - Key Themes in Environmental Sciences 1. Approximately 6.6 billion people live on Earth. 2. When residents of a large city damage the environment, they are damaging the atmosphere and wasting water but they are not directly hurting plants because they are outside of the city. Someone living on a farm can affect the soil and the ponds which lead to death of many trees. Eventually, both the residents and the farmers hurt the plants and the inhabitants who depend on the plants and the water. 3. The pros of distributing food to Africans are that they can work on their field again and they can help the environment improve. However, the cons are that more surviving Africans can give offspring which will increase the population and they will harm the environment with overpopulation. 4. Sustainability refers to resources and their environment. Sustainable resource harvest, such as a sustainable supply of timber, means that the same quantity of that resource can be harvested each year for an unlimited or specified amount of time without decreasing the ability of the resources to produce the same harvest level. A sustainable ecosystem is a ecosystem from which we are harvesting a resource that is still able to maintain its essential functions and properties. 5. The author of Silent Spring is Rachel Carson. The publication of her book helped spark environment events to become a popular topic. 6. The main environment problem on Earth is the sharp increase in population that may reach its full capacity in 40 years. 7. The Black Death is a disease that spread throughout Europe during the fourteenth century. It is caused by the bacteria Yersinia pestis and is spread by fleas that live on rodents. The plague led to death of one-third or one-fourth of the population in Europe. The Black Death had impact on people as well as the environment. Wages had to be increased and agricultural land was abandoned. 8. 1. The worlds coral reefs are essential for marine animals and also for people. The reefs protect the coastlines from erosion and provide home for animals but fishers destroy them to find fish and many of the reefs are used as souvenirs. The increasing population pollutes the ocean and hurts the coral reefs even more. Therefore, the current state of the coral reefs is 10% destroyed and 30% threatened. 2. Utilitarian justification: Coral reefs provide humans with living resources and services worth $375 billion per year. They are the source of useful chemicals and medicines. Ecological justification: Coral reefs provide shelter for fish. Because reefs are being overfished, some species are now rare and endangered. Aesthetic justification: Coral reefs are used as souvenirs. Their beauty will be gone if too many of them are being taken away from the ocean. Moral justification: Fishers fishing usually use poison or dynamite to catch fish that are in coral reefs. This not only harms the reefs but also the fish in the area. 3. If Maitri Visetak were to make his living from fishing rather than farming shrimp, he would feel indifferent towards fish as well. Instead of catching fish with dynamite and poison, he should fish naturally with a net. In that way, there would be no overfishing and no pollution in the water. 4. Things I can do everyday to preserve coral reefs are saving water, using less electricity, and making less garbage.

Chapter 2 - Science as a Way of Knowing: Critical Thinking about the Environment 1. a. This statement is a scientific statement because it can be proven through experiments. There can be a data of percents of carbon dioxide increasing. b. This statement is not a scientific statement because it is a personal choice. c. This is a scientific statement because it can be proven through a data of how many condors are remaining compared to how many there were before. d. This statement is a scientific statement because it is not a belief or a religious view. e. This statement is not a scientific statement because it is a belief. f. This statement is scientific if it can be proven and if it is reasonable. It can be tested by seeing if people can make crop circles. 2. The control in an experiment is the variable that is kept constant in the experiment that does not mean that the variable is the same as another tested experiments variable. In a controlled experiment, the duplicate of the original experiment has the same, exact variables with the variable that is being tested different. 3. A ruler cannot show a precise measure, so if I reported a distance measured to be 0.3900 inches, it would be inaccurate because I did not actually know a number that specific. 4. a. The rate of breathing is the dependent variable and the amount of exercise is the independent variable. b. The grades is the dependent variable and the study time is the independent variable. c. The likelihood of the people is the dependent variable and the other people is the independent variable. 5. Scientific statements must be falsified because of the method disprovability. If it cannot be disproved, it is not scientific. 6. The probability of a fish surviving is 14/25. 7. a. It is quantitative. b. It is qualitative. c. It is qualitative. d. It is quantitative. 8. Another word for the manipulated variable is the dependent variable or responding variable. 9. The major claim of the article is that the number of frogs with deformities are increasing. 10. The evidence the author provides is from inferences such as Michael Lannoo. Lanno claims that there are many more frogs with deformities and there were in 1750. 11. The evidence is based on the source of the evidence and unbiased because the author puts no authority of himself in the article. He continuously uses he says and Lannoo says because he is not the one who directly saw the increasing number of deformed frogs. 12. The argument for the claim is not logical because the only one person is cited in the article. Also, the deformities of the frogs could be triggered from the weather or the timing. 13. I would reject this claim because there needs to be more experiments from more than one person and it should be based on regions and time.