1. A Changing Landscape
Read the lesson title aloud to students.

2. Learning Objectives
Describe human activities that can affect the biosphere.
Describe the relationship between resource use and sustainable development.
Click to reveal each of the learning objectives.
To engage students in this lesson and activate their prior knowledge, describe a well-known natural area, such as a forest preserve or wetland, in or near your community. Have students imagine that a new housing development will be built there.
Ask: What are the positive and negative impacts of such a project?
Sample answer: Positives might include: new jobs, new houses; negatives might include: loss of trees, displaced animals.

3. The Effect of Human Activity
Environmental changes impact Hawaii’s ecosystem:
seafood
water
food
Ask students to study the two images. Explain that both images are taken in Hawaii.
Tell them that the image on the left is of Kalalau Valley along the Na Pali coast of Kauai. Point out that it looks almost untouched by humans.
Contrast that with the image on the right from Waikiki Beach on the island of Oahu. Point out that it is surrounded by built-up areas that support tourism.
Tell students that the ancestors of native Hawaiians recognized that their long-term survival depended on the limited and changing resource bases of their island homes. For example: They avoided catching several fish species during spawning season so fish populations could replenish themselves. Anyone who wanted to cut down a coconut palm was required to plant two to take its place.
Explain that Hawaiians didn’t treat their islands like nature reserves. They cleared forests to plant farms. They introduced nonnative plants, pigs, chickens, dogs, and rats. These actions drove many native species to extinction. For centuries, Hawaiian ecosystems still provided fresh water, fertile soil, fish, and other resources to keep the society self sufficient. But, in the late 1700s, new settlers arrived who didn’t understand Hawaii’s limited resource base.
Tell students: The environmental changes in Hawaii have powerfully impacted ecosystem function and stability.
Click to reveal the first impact.
Explain that seafood became scarce because overfishing made once-common fishes rare.
Click to reveal the second impact.
Tell students that agricultural practices and pollution have depleted or polluted drinking water.
Click to reveal the third impact.
Explain that lots of food must be imported because local farmers can’t produce enough.

4. Living on Island Earth
Humans rely on natural resources and healthy ecosystems.
Earth is an island of life.
Human activities change Earth.
Explain to students that the example of Hawaii is important because humans, like all organisms, rely on natural resources and products of healthy ecosystems. While islands are small and force people to realize that long-term survival is dependent on a limited resource base, those who live on large continents don’t think of themselves as living on an island.
Click to reveal the first point.
Tell students: Earth is an island of life in space, as shown by photographs of Earth from satellites. When human populations were small, environmental problems were local. There was always new land to settle and new sources of food and water. Today, human activity has used or changed as much as 80 percent of all land that is not covered with ice and snow. These figures lead some ecologists to suggest that our global population will soon approach Earth’s carrying capacity for humans.
Ask: How is Earth like an island?
Answer: Earth is like an island because the resources here are finite—we can’t get water or soil from anywhere else. It’s also like an island because humans can’t leave to live anywhere else.
Click to reveal the second point.
Ask: Which human activities affect the environment?
Sample answer: Humans affect regional and global environments through agriculture, development, and industry.
Ask: What natural resources are affected?
Sample answer: soil, water, and the atmosphere

5. Agriculture Monoculture
involves planting large areas with a single highly productive crop year after year.
Monoculture
Ask: Why is agriculture one of the most important human inventions?
Answer: A dependable food supply enabled humans to gather in settlements. Settlements grew into towns and cities, which encouraged the growth of civilization.
Ask a volunteer to fill in the name of the agriculture practice described.
Click to reveal the answer.
Explain that feeding the growing human population was made possible by modern agricultural practices such as monoculture. Tell students that monoculture enables efficient sowing, tending, and harvesting of crops using machines. Providing food for 7 billion people, however, impacts natural resources, including fresh water and fertile soil.
Explain to students that humans capture somewhere between 20 and 40 percent of total net global primary productivity. Fertilizer production and farm machinery also consume large amounts of fossil fuels.
Ask: How has agriculture helped shape civilization?
Answer: Agriculture enabled humans to gather in settlements that grew into towns and cities. Settlements, in turn, encouraged the growth of modern civilization.

6. Development and Industrial Growth
Dense human communities produce large amounts of .
wastes
Energy is required to produce and power modern conveniences.
Tell students that as modern society developed, many people chose to live in cities. In the United States, urban centers became crowded, and suburbs expanded. The growth of cities and suburbs has environmental effects.
Ask for a volunteer to verbally complete the statement.
Click to reveal the answer.
Tell students: Dense human communities produce large amounts of wastes.
Explain that if these wastes are not disposed of properly, they affect air, water, and soil resources. Go on to explain that development consumes farmland and divides natural habitats into fragments.
Tell students that human society was transformed by the Industrial Revolution of the 1800s.
Explain that today, industry, science, and technology provide us with the conveniences of modern life—from comfortable homes and clothes to electronic devices for work and play. Point out that a lot of energy is required to produce and power these conveniences.
Click to reveal this information.
Explain to students that we produce most of this energy by burning fossil fuels—coal, oil, and natural gas—in ways that disrupt the carbon cycle and affect the environment. In addition, industries have traditionally discarded wastes from manufacturing and energy production directly into the air, water, and soil.

7. Ecosystem Goods and Services
Healthy ecosystems provide many goods and services such as breathable air and drinkable water.
Point out to students that healthy ecosystems provide many goods and services—such as breathable air and drinkable water—naturally and free of charge, so we often take them for granted. But if the environment can’t provide these goods and services, society must spend money to produce them.
Ask: What three ecosystem goods and services have you used today?
Answer: The air I breathe, the water I drink, and the oil used to make the gasoline burned in our car are three examples.
Tell students that in many places, water clean enough to drink is provided naturally by streams, rivers, and lake and is filtered by wetlands. If human-caused environmental changes impact ecosystem stability and function, water quality may fall. In such cases, cities and towns must pay for mechanical or chemical treatment to provide safe drinking water.
Direct students to observe the photo shown. Explain that this is a farmland as it appeared in It had been drained and leveed for farming in 1900.
Click to reveal a new photo.
Direct students to compare the new photo with the original one. The new photo (now on the bottom) is of the area after it was restored by The Wetlands Initiative—an organization dedicated to protecting and restoring Illinois’s wetlands.
Ask: Why do you think The Wetlands Initiative would restore this area as wetlands?
Answer: Restoring it as wetlands provides a wildlife habitat and a natural filter for the area’s water.
Ask: How is this restoration an example of sustainable development?
Answer: Sustainable development provides for human needs while preserving the ecosystem. Restoring the wetlands provides humans with clean drinking water while preserving the regional ecosystem.
Ask: What ecological services do wetlands provide?
Answer: Wetlands filter water and provide a habitat for many kinds of organisms.

8. Renewable and Nonrenewable Resources
A resource can be produced or replaced.
A resource cannot be replenished by natural processes within a reasonable time.
renewable
nonrenewable
Explain to students that ecosystem goods and services can be classified as either renewable or nonrenewable.
Ask for volunteers to verbally complete the sentences using the words “renewable” and “nonrenewable.”
Click to reveal the correct answers.
Tell students: A renewable resource can be produced or replaced by a healthy ecosystem. A single southern white pine is an example of a renewable resource because a new tree can grow in place of an old tree that dies or is cut down. Power generated from wind is also a renewable resource.
Tell students: If natural processes cannot replenish resources within a reasonable time, they are considered to be nonrenewable resources. Fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas are nonrenewable resources formed from buried organic materials over millions of years. When existing deposits are depleted, they are gone.

9. Sustainable Resource Use
Sustainable development provides for human needs while preserving the ecosystems that produce natural resources.
Tell students that ecological science can teach us how to use natural resources to meet our needs without causing long-term environmental harm.
Using resources in such an environmentally conscious way is called sustainable development. Sustainable development provides for human needs while preserving the ecosystems that produce natural resources.
Ask: What are the results of sustainable development?
Answer: It should cause no long-term harm to the soil, water, and climate on which it depends. It should consume as little energy and material as possible.
Explain that sustainable development must be flexible enough to survive environmental stresses like droughts, floods, and heat waves or cold snaps.
Finally, tell students that sustainable development must take into account human economic systems and ecosystem goods and services. It must do more than just enable people to survive. It must help them improve their situation.

10. Sustainable development
Overview
Human activities
change the quality of Earth’s natural resources.
provides for human needs while preserving ecosystems.
Sustainable development
Review with students the key points of this lesson.
Ask for a volunteer to fill in the missing words to complete the first summary point.
Click to reveal the correct answer.
Remind students that humans affect regional and global environments through agriculture, development, and industry in ways that have an impact on the quality of Earth’s natural resources, including soil, water, and the atmosphere.
Ask for a volunteer to fill in the missing words to complete the second summary point.
Tell students: Sustainable development provides for human needs while preserving the ecosystems that produce natural resources.