hi it's mr andersen and this is ap environmental science video one it's the first in a series of videos for ap environmental science which is the study of the interactions between the systems of the earth and the human systems and i remember visiting shanghai and looking across the bond and thinking wow we have so many people on our planet we're pushing well beyond 7 billion that's going to put pressure on the earth and understanding how that works is incredibly important and so ap environmental science will study the interactions between the natural systems and the human systems so we'll begin with the earth itself and then we'll move through living systems and finally we'll get to the populations that make up human systems the rest of the course will be dedicated to the interactions between these two worlds and so we'll begin with land and water use then energy finally pollution and climate change now since this is a science course it's incredibly important that we study the practices of science what it is to be an environmental scientist and so this is the outline for the course we'll begin with the earth we'll move through climate change but we're going to deal with the practices throughout now what's most important to us as humans are the human populations and so to live within those boundaries it's important that we understand the concept of sustainability what happens when you outstep those boundaries well we could look to easter island for an example we used to have a flourishing population there but what happened was deforestation they put pressure on the island itself and their population dropped off dramatically and so as we study environmental science we'll deal with very important figures but i wanted to begin with a very important figure named rachel carson and she really brought us into the modern age of environmental science her study of ddt and the negative consequences of that which are illustrated in her book silent spring really brought that to the forefront of our minds what are we doing and how are we impacting the environment itself and so this is an environmental science course and so like any other science course we're going to deal with a scientific method now sometimes students will confuse that term with environmentalism now that's going to be a belief system so we are going to lobby officials and try to get laws passed that protect the environment that is not environmental science environmental science is looking for that truth of how we can interact with the environment so maybe in the future science will say that ddt is an important tool that we could use to fight malaria then we have to follow that pathway and so why is this course important well when i was young people used to wear t-shirts that said save our planet and it's kind of a funny shirt because the planet the earth is going to do fine it's how we do on that planet that's important to us and so a better slogan is save our society and why is that a big deal right now well we're starting to exceed some what have been coined planetary boundaries by johann rockstrom and his group at the stockholm resilience center and so if we look at this model we look at all the things that are affecting the earth that can then affect society and so the one that you're probably familiar with is climate change but we also have ocean acidification we have ozone depletion we have changes in biogeochemical cycling increases in nitrogen and phosphorus we have fresh water use or the availability of fresh water deforestation biodiversity loss particle pollution and chemical pollution and so what they've done is said how can we exist within the safe boundaries of the earth so on this model if we say the blue represents where we can safely live this yellow dot represents where humanity was pre-industrialization before the industrial revolution and the spread of industry around the world these were our levels but now if we look at where we are as far as those boundaries as far as climate change we are increasing the climate the temperature and as a result we're going to have consequences that are beginning to affect society and will continue to affect society we're looking at a three degree increase which is incredible but if we look at these other ones ocean acidification ozone depletion or increase in the amount of nitrogen in the biosphere phosphorus if we look at fresh water use deforestation biodiversity losses a lot of scientists say we are headed into the sixth extinction that caused by humans now we don't have good models for pollution but if you put our earth back we are exceeding these boundaries we are putting pressure on the earth now the earth will survive but humans may not survive in the numbers that we are today and so that's why it's important we have to live within the boundaries of the earth itself and so sustainability is incredibly important now a model that works is since industry brought us to this point industry is going to have to bring us back and so this model works for me if you think of the earth as this boundary of life support and society exists within that then what's at the center what drove industrialization it's the economy and so as we come up with solutions for sustainability it's not enough to just say that we should save the earth because that's good or we should be altruistic in that it has to be an economical driver that's pushing that sustainability another term that you'll hear a lot is the idea of an ecological footprint since we i live in a developed country i'm using more resources on our planet than other people in developing countries and so as they become developed that's going to put even more pressure on the planet and so that's why this course is incredibly important it's also why this is unlike the other sciences that you've probably taken it's not just going to be science it's going to contain the natural sciences but it will also have the social sciences and the humanities as well so we're going to be talking about science but also we'll be talking about ethics and law and politics and so it's really going to be a fun course to walk through also you should remember that this is a science course and so as we move forward the ap folks are focusing on the practices of science so inside the course itself you should be acting like an environmental science scientist rather and so you shouldn't just be learning about environmental sciences you should be applying it so if we start with one of these practices asking questions conducting investigations this would be a great field investigation for me to do so this is the eastern gallatin right outside bozeman and so i could do studies here on water quality over time but i could also do studies in the laboratory i should be doing investigations where i'm coming up with a question and trying to answer that question case studies will be incredibly important as well making these connections between what we've learned in the course so you're probably familiar with the deep water horizon there was a fire and that led to this spread of oil so this fire eventually there was a breach of the pipe and now we have oil spreading so to look at where we are this is in the gulf of mexico this is florida and so we're looking at this area right here you can see so much oil is spread out and in each of these case studies there is something happening to the environment and so we have to understand all the ramifications of that and lots of times it takes decades to figure out what really has happened and then finally you are going to take an ap exam at the end and so understanding how that ap exam is important right now to understand what can you do throughout the course to kind of prepare for that and so analyzing data using mathematics is going to be incredibly important so let me briefly talk about the test and so the first section will be multiple choice you're going to have 100 questions you get 90 minutes to answer those questions some will be discrete by themselves and some will come in big sets so you might have a map and be trying to point to different geology on the planet and then you'll move into the free response in the free response you're going to have one question that's going to be based in a data set and so understanding how to analyze data both on the multiple choice and the free response is incredibly important you'll then have one document based question it's always on this pretend city name fremont so it's a article in the fremont gazette for example and so you're going to have to analyze that so connecting the knowledge that you've learned is incredibly important and you're also going to have to do a lot of calculating and what's interesting is there's no calculator so prepare for that so understanding how to solve simple problems just using mathematics dimensional analysis and scientific notation that's incredibly important as well and so did you learn the following could you fill out this concept map well you could pause the video right now and try to do that but i'll step you through it and so what is environmental science it's the interactions between the natural systems and the human systems that will be the earth systems and the living systems interacting with populations and so this is interactions right here we'll start with land water use energy we move towards pollution and the pressures we're putting on the earth and global change and remember that you want to focus on the practices so hopefully you've learned that and i hope that was helpful