Unit 18: Our Environment

Unit 18: Our Environment

This unit includes information about pollution and environmental quality. Protecting our environment and its natural resources is stressed.

Student Goals

• Demonstrate an understanding of the impact technologies have on the quality of life and the environment.
• Understand how the use of fossil fuels relate to possible impacts of the greenhouse effect.
• Understand the interactions between science and public andprivate agencies concerning matters of broad, public interest.
• Identify the environmental influences in their neighborhood.
• Identify ways that humans are agents of change and their effect on the environment.
• Recognize ways that society is trying to maintain the balance of nature.
• Identify how society is trying to stop pollution and depletion of natural resources.
• Model the creation and clean up of an oil spill.
• Know forms of land and water pollution.

Unit Focus

• Know that layers of energy-rich organic materials have been gradually turned into great coal beds and oil pools (fossil fuels) by the pressure of the overlying earth and that humans burn fossil fuels to release the stored energy as heat and carbon dioxide.
• Know that changes in a component of an ecosystem will have unpredictable effects on the entire system but that the components of the system tend to react in a way that will restore the ecosystem to its original condition.
• Know that scientists can bring information, insights, and analytical skills to matters of public concern and help people understand the possible causes and effects of events.