APES Chapter 1 Vocabulary House

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

Particular location on Earth whose interacting components include biotic and abiotic components

Biotic

Living

Abiotic

Nonliving

Environmentalist

Person who participates in environmentalism

Environmental Studies

Environmental policy, economics,literature, and ethics

Ecosystem Services

The process by which life-supporting resources are produced

Environmental Indicators

Describe the current state of an environmental system

Sustainability

Living on Earth in a way the allows us to use its resources without depriving future generations of those resources

Boidiversity

Diversity of life forms in an environment

Species

Group of organisms that is distinct from other in its morphology, behavior, or biochemical properties

Speciation

Evolution of a new species

Backgrounds Extinction Rate

The average rate at which species go extinct over the long term

Greenhouse Gases

Heat trapping gas that acts as a blanket in Earth's atmosphere

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

Love of life

Ecological Footprint

Measure of how much that person consumes, expressed in land area

Scientific Method

Objective way to explore the natural world, draw inferences from it, and predict the outcome of certain events, processes, or changes

Hypothesis

Testable conjecture about how something works

Null Hypothesis

Statement or idea that can be falsified, proved wrong

Replication

Taking several sets of measurements

Sample Size

Number of times a measurement is replicated

Accuracy

How closea measured value is to the actual or true value

Precision

How close to one another the repeated measurements of the same sample are

Uncertainty

An estimate of how much a measured or calculated value differs from a true value

Inductive Reasoning

Proces of making general statementsfrom specific facts or examples

Deductive Reasoning

The process of applying a general statement to specific facts or situations

Critical Thinking

Questioning the source of the information, considering the methods or processes that were used to obtain the information, and draw your own conclusions

Theory

Hypothesis that has been repeatedly tested and confirmed by multiple groupsof researchers and has reached a wide acceptance

Natural Law

Theory to which there are no known exceptions and which has withstood rigorous testing

Control Group

Group that experiences exactly the same conditions as the experimental group, except for the single variable under study

Natural Experiment

Occurs when a natural event acts as an experimental treatment in an ecosystem

Environmental Justice

Social movement and field of study that works toward equal enforcement of environmental laws and the elimination of disparities, whether intended or unintended, in how pollutants and other environmental harms are distributed among the various ethnic and s