Chapter 1

Front 1

Anthropogenic

Back 1

Derived from human activities.

Chiefly of environmental pollution and pollutants.

Front 2

System

Back 2

Any set of interacting components that influence one another by exchanging energy or materials.

Front 3

Ecosystem

Back 3

A particular location on Earth with interacting biotic and abiotic components.

Front 4

Biotic

Back 4

Living.

Front 5

Abiotic

Back 5

Nonliving.

Front 6

Ecosystem Services

Back 6

The processes by which life-supporting resources such as clean water, timber, fisheries, and agricultural crops are produced.

Front 7

Environmental Indicators

Back 7

An indicator that describes the current state of an environmental system. Environmental indicator provide valuable information about natural systems on both small and large scales.

Front 8

Sustainability

Back 8

A group of organisms that is distinct from other groups in its morphology (body form and structure), behavior, or biochemical properties.

Front 9

Biodiversity

Back 9

The diversity of life forms in an environment. It exists on 3 scales: ecosystem, species, and genetic. Each level of biodiversity is an important indicator of environmental health and quality.

Front 10

Genetic Diversity

Back 10

A measure of genetic variation among individuals in a population.

Front 11

Species Diversity

Back 11

The number of species in a region or in a particular type of habitat.

Front 12

Ecosystem Diversity

Back 12

A measure of the diversity of ecosystems or habitats that exist in a given region.

Front 13

Speciation

Back 13

The evolution of new species.

Front 14

Background Extinction Rate

Back 14

The average rate at which species become extinct over the long term.

Front 15

Greenhouse Gases

Back 15

Gases in earth's atmosphere that trap heat near the surface.

Front 16

Sustainable Development

Back 16

Development that balances current human well-being and economic advancement with resource management for the benefit of future generations. The issues involved in evaluating sustainability are complex. in part because sustainability depends not only on the number of people using a resource but also on how that resource is used.

Front 17

Ecological Footprint

Back 17

A measure of how much an individual consumes, expressed in area of land-that is, the output from the total amount of land required to support a person's lifestyle represents that person's ecological footprint.

Front 18

Scientific Method

Back 18

An objective method to explore the natural world, draw inferences from it, and predict the outcome of certain events, processes, or changes.

Front 19

Hypothesis

Back 19

A testable conjecture about how something works.

Front 20

Null Hypothesis

Back 20

A prediction that there is no difference between groups or conditions, or a statement or an idea that can be falsified or proved wrong.

Front 21

Replication

Back 21

The data collection procedure of taking repeated measurements.

Front 22

Sample Size

Back 22

The number of times a measurement is replicated in data collection.

Front 23

Accuracy

Back 23

How close a measured value is to the actual or true value.

Front 24

Precision

Back 24

How close the repeated measurements of a sample are to one another.

Front 25

Uncertainty

Back 25

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

Front 26

Inductive Reasoning

Back 26

The process of making general statements from specific facts or examples.

Front 27

Deductive Reasoning

Back 27

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

Front 28

Theory

Back 28

A hypothesis that has been repeatedly tested and confirmed by multiple groups of researchers and has reached wide acceptance.

Front 29

Natural Law

Back 29

A theory to which there is no known exceptions and which has withstood rigorous testing.

Front 30

Control Group

Back 30

In a scientific investigation, a group that experiences the exact same conditions as the experimental group, except for the single variable under study.

Front 31

Natural Experiment

Back 31

A natural event that acts as an experimental treatment in an ecosystem.

Front 32

Environmental Justice

Back 32

A 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 socioeconomic groups within a society.