Effective: 2024-05-01

Course Description

The course outline below was developed as part of a statewide standardization process.

General Course Purpose

The purpose of ENV 121 is to provide non-science majors with an introduction to the scientific principles of environmental science with an emphasis on the interactions between humans and the environment.

Course Objectives

• Scientific Literacy
• Apply the scientific method to make informed decisions and engage with issues related to environmental science
• Develop, convey, and exchange ideas in writing on different topics in environmental science.
• Critical Thinking
• Evaluate different perspectives, opinions, and statements about environmental issues in terms of their logic, content, scientific merit, and biases.
• Civic Engagement
• Examine the role of environmental ethics in decision-making and environmental stewardship.
• Reflect critically about student roles and identities as citizens, consumers and environmental actors in a complex, interconnected natural world.

Major Topics to be Included

• Principles of Environmental Science
• Define the purpose and scope of environmental science
• Differentiate between sound science and nonscience
• Apply the scientific method by completing an experiment
• Relate the history of environmental ideas to our current relationship to the environment
• Apply a systems approach to science
• Apply basic chemistry and thermodynamics to environmental processes
• Describe connections between climate change and environmental issues
• From Species to Ecosystem
• Differentiate among population, species, community, ecosystem, and biosphere
• Classify ecosystems as specific biomes (or aquatic zones)
• Interpret food webs and energy flow through trophic levels
• Discuss the limits on population growth
• Differentiate between exponential and logistic growth
• Explain how communities and ecosystems respond to disturbance, including invasive species, keystone species removal, and ecological succession.
• Evolution
• Describe how life is classified and species are defined
• Explain how evolution has led to the biodiversity we observe today.
• Describe the process of evolution and how it affects how species interact with each other and their environment
• Differentiate among the mechanisms of evolution (for example: gene flow, genetic drift, natural selection)
• Abiotic Environment
• Analyze how humans impact natural biogeochemical cycles
• Relate climatic conditions to the biotic environment
• Understand natural climatic processes
• Explain the impact of mineral resource extraction
• Understand basic principles of geology (rock cycle, tectonic plates, fossil fuel formation, soil structure)
• Conservation
• Describe human impacts on the environment with an emphasis on the biodiversity crisis (HIPPOC)
• Correlate human activities with the degradation of ecosystem services and emphasize our role in environmental stewardship
• Examine possible solutions to species and ecosystem conservation and biodiversity restoration
• Identify how restoration ecology and preserving landscapes can be used in conservation
• Human Populations
• Trace the history of human population growth
• Compare and contrast the factors determining population growth
• Analyze the factors determining the human population growth
• Describe demographic transition and its impact on environment
• Identify how human population size, density, and resource use affect the environment