AP Environmental Science- Chapter 1
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Created by:
carolinedefreitas on July 12, 2012
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37 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 Environment | the sum of all the conditions surrounding us that influence life |
| Environmental Science | the field of study that looks at interactions among human systems and those found in nature |
| System | any set of interacting components that influence one another by exchanging energy or materials |
| Ecosystem | a particular location on Earth distinguished by its mix of interacting biotic and abiotic components |
| Biotic | living |
| Abiotic | nonliving |
| Environmentalist | a person who participates in environmentalism, a social movement that seeks to protect the environment through lobbying, activism, and education |
| Environmental Studies | the field of study that include environmental science, environmental policy, economics, literature, and ethics, among others |
| Ecosystem Services | the process by which natural environments provide life-supporting resources |
| Environmental Indicators | an indicator that describes the current state of an environmental system |
| Sustainability | living on Earth in a way that allows humans to use to use its resources without depriving future generations of those resources |
| Biodiversity | the diversity of life forms in an environment |
| Species | a group of organisms that is distinct from other groups in its morphology, behavior, or biochemical properties |
| Speciation | the evolution of new species |
| Background Extinction Rate | the average rate at which species become extinct over the long term |
| Greenhouse Gases | a gas in Earth's atmosphere that traps heat near the surface |
| Anthropogenic | derived from human activities |
| Development | improvement in human well-being through economic advancement |
| Sustainable Development | development that balances current human well-being and economic advancement with resource management for the benefit of future generations |
| Biophilia | an appreciation for life |
| Ecological Footprint | a measure of how much an individual consumes, expressed in an area of land |
| Scientific Method | an objective method to explore the natural world, draw inferences from it, and predict the outcome of certain events, processes, or changes |
| Hypothesis | a testable theory or supposition about how something works |
| Null Hypothesis | a statement or idea that can be falsified, or proved wrong |
| Replication | the data collection procedure of taking repeated measurements |
| Sample Size | the number of times a measurement is replicated in the data collection process |
| Accuracy | how close a measured value is to the actual or true value |
| Precision | how close the repeated measurements of a sample are to one another |
| Uncertainty | an estimate of how much a measured or calculated value differs from a true value |
| Inductive Reasoning | the process of making general statements from specific facts or examples |
| Deductive Reasoning | the process of applying a general statement to specific facts or situations |
| Critical Thinking | the process of questioning the source of information, considering the methods used to obtain the information, and drawing conclusions; essential to all scientific endeavor. |
| Theory | a hypothesis that has been repeatedly tested and confirmed by multiple groups of researchers and has reached world wide acceptance |
| Natural Law | a theory for which there is no known exception and that has withstood rigorous testing |
| Control Group | in a scientific investigation , a group the experiences exactly the same conditions as the experimental group, expect for the single variable under study |
| Natural Experiment | a natural event that acts as an experimental treatment in an ecosystem |
| Environmental Justice | a social movement and field of study that focuses on equal enforcement of environmental laws and eliminating disparities in the exposure of environmental harms to different ethnic and socioeconomic groups within a society |
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