1. Understanding Our Environment GISAT 112

2. Objectives  Define Environment  Distinguish between environmental science and environmentalism  Explore the interdisciplinary nature of environmental problems  Review scientific problem solving methods and critical thinking skills

3. Environment  Circumstances and conditions that surround an organism or group of organisms, INCLUDING  Social and cultural conditions that affect an individual or community What is YOUR environment?

4. Human actions influence the environment  We depend on natural resources for our continued survival  Human population growth has shaped our relationship with natural resources  Understanding environmental science may help to prevent or fix environmental problems

5. Environmental Science is Integrated and Holistic  Integrates all physical and natural sciences in understanding complex phenomena  Integrates all social sciences in understanding how to achieve solutions to problems  Remedies are now well understood; the problem is to make them socially, economically, and politically acceptable.

6. Environmental Problems need Interdisciplinary solutions

7. What’s in a Word?  Environmentalism: a social movement dedicated to protecting the natural world from undesirable changes brought about by human choices.  Environmental Science: the pursuit of knowledge about the workings of the environment and our interaction with it.  Environmental Management: using our knowledge to protect and/or repair the environment

8. Environmental Problems are not “one size fits all”  An environmental problem is perceived differently by different people.  Age, race, class, nationality, education level, and employment may affect how a problem is perceived and which solutions are acceptable

9. What is YOUR perception?  Using DDT to control mosquitoes  Banning logging in old growth forests to protect Northern Spotted Owls  Requiring car manufacturers to put catalytic converters on automobiles to reduce emissions  Prohibiting ivory sale to preserve elephant populations

10. Scientific Thinking  Reduces tendency to rely on emotional reaction and unexamined assumptions  Skeptical (without loss of curiosity)  Rooted in antiquity  Based on cooperation and insight, shared results  Reproducible  Experimental – through controlled experimentation  The “scientific method”: make a hypothesis, design the experiment, collect data, interpret the data, draw conclusions, repeat!

11. Assumptions behind the scientific method  The behavior of the universe can be described by fixed “laws” (i.e. everything is comprehensible)  Everything has a cause and an effect.  Our senses and reasoning allow us to detect and describe the laws which underlie the causes and effects we observe. (Empirical analysis is possible)

12. How do we DO science?  Observe  Ask questions  Hypothesize  Predict  Test the predictions  Analyze and interpret your results

13. Scientific Practice includes others  Repeatability—others try to get the same results that you do.  Peer review—other scientists judge your work before it is published.  Conferences—talking about your work with others exchanges ideas and challenges interpretations.  Funding—the money you need to do your work comes when you convince others that it is worthwhile.

14. Steps in Critical Thinking  Identify and evaluate premises and conclusions in an argument  Acknowledge and clarify uncertainties, vagueness, equivocation, and contradictions  Distinguish between facts and values  Recognize and assess assumptions  Distinguish source reliability or unreliability  Recognize and understand conceptual frameworks

15. Developing a good research question  What is the impact of global warming?  How does global warming affect a forest?  How will the rising content of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere affect trees?  Are there other variables involved that could mask or enhance this effect?

16. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24738-2004Aug22.html