Foundations of Environmental Science

This unit establishes core scientific principles, tools, and systems thinking used to investigate environmental problems, including matter and energy, ecosystem structure, population dynamics, water and land resources, and common pollutants. It prepares students to design and analyze investigations, map and graph environmental data, and evaluate resource and conservation strategies in later, more applied units.

Learning Objectives

• Analyze environmental questions by applying the scientific method to develop testable hypotheses, design controlled investigations, and interpret collected data using appropriate graphical and statistical techniques.
• Apply principles of atomic structure, states of matter, energy types, and thermodynamics to model energy flow and transformations in natural and engineered systems, including identification of major climate drivers and alternative energy sources.
• Demonstrate systems thinking by mapping and characterizing ecosystems, population structure, freshwater and land resources across spatial scales (latitude, altitude, local to global) using geospatial tools and conceptual system diagrams.
• Evaluate human impacts, common pollutants, toxin pathways, and resource-management case studies (e.g., wetlands protection, fisheries, waste life cycles) to propose evidence-based conservation or mitigation strategies.