Essential Environment: The Science Behind The Stories

1. Define the term "environment."

The environment is defined as all living organisms and all non-living matter and energy. The biotic environment makes up living things and the abiotic environment makes up the non-living environment. The clouds, oceans, ice caps, animals, plants, forests, and the landscape that surrounds us is the environment (Withgott, & Laposata, 2012).

Reference

Withgott, J. & Laposata, M. (2012), Essential Environment: The Science Behind the Stories, Fourth Edition.

2. What does the discipline of environmental science study? What types of information go into that undertaking?

The environmental science discipline asked the question how does the world work? How are species affected and how that affects

The direct needs are fresh water, food and clean air to breathe; the indirect needs shelter from the elements, fuels to keep warm in the winter and a sixth would be sleep.

Withgott, J. & Laposata, M. (2012), Essential Environment: The Science Behind the Stories, Fourth Edition.

4. In what five ways are humans harming the environment?

There are five ways that people affect, damage or harm the environment and the ecosystems. The pollution of the air we breathe, the human population is increasing because of technology, waste, energy, and natural resources. They damage the water and land by using the natural resources and cutting down trees in the forests.

5. What are the differences between renewable and nonrenewable resources? Give an example for each.

Renewable resources are resources that can be replaced just as fast as they are being used and are therefore unlimited. Two examples are solar energy which comes from the sun and wind energy. Non-renewable resources are maintained by using them more slowly than they are created. The example of non-renewable resources is coal; coal is one of the most plentiful non-renewable sources in the world because it is used to create more than half the electricity in the

Thoroughly describe the electron movement in a single covalent bond.

This occurs when two atoms share electrons, and both will circle the atomic nuclei.

15. Name the four macromolecules that are found in all living organisms.

All living organisms contain at least four types of macromolecules which are proteins, carbohydrates, lipids and nucleic acids.

16. Describe the first two laws of thermodynamics.

The first law of thermodynamics is the conservation energy can be converted from one form to another but cannot be destroyed or created in an isolated system. An example is a potential energy that is not used and kinetic energy which is being used, for example, the water in a dam is potential energy, and when the water is released from the dam, it becomes kinetic energy.

The second law of thermodynamics is that systems will move towards entropy (which means a state of chaos) over time. This is energy that moves from order to chaos if the energy does not leave the system, and that energy will always be less than the initial state. An example is when a car run out of gas will not run again until you walk to the gas station to refuel the