1. Unit 1 What is Ecology?
Chapters 1 & 3
Chapter 3

2. Chapter 1: Environmental Problems, Their Causes and Sustainability

3. Environment: everything that affects a living thing
Ecology: a biological science that studies the relationships between living organisms and their environment

4. Solar Capital: solar energy reaching the earth
Natural Capital: earth’s resources and ecological services
Resource: something derived by nature and used by us (food, shelter, water, etc.)

5. Renewable Resource: a resource that can be replenished rapidly
Non-renewable Resource: a resource that exists in a fixed quantity in the earth’s crust
Sustainable Yield: the highest rate at which a renewable resource can be used indefinitely without reducing its available supply

7. Pollution: the introduction of contaminants that cause a change in an environment
Happens naturally or from human sources
Disrupts life-support systems
Is unhealthy and unpleasant

8. Point source pollutant: pollutant that comes from a specific source
Factory dumping waste in a local lake
Gasoline tanks leaking into the ground
Non-point source pollutant: pollution that comes from an unknown source or multiple sources
Emissions from cars
Chemical found in lake of unknown origin

9. Five Key Environmental Problems:
Population growth
Wasteful resource use
Poverty
Poor environmental accounting
Ecological ignorance are caused by the number of people, affluence and technology

10. Chapter 3: Science, Matter and Energy

11. Law of Conservation of Matter
Matter is not destroyed
Matter only changes forms
There is no “throw away”

12. Matter: Forms, Structure and Quality
Subatomic Particles:
Protons: positively charged particles
Neutrons: particles without a charge
Electrons: negatively charged particles
Atoms: composed of subatomic particles and are the smallest unit of the building blocks of matter
Element: Chemical consisting of all of the same atoms

13. Atomic Characteristics
Atomic Number: equal to the number of protons in the nucleus of the atom
Mass Number: equal to the number of protons and neutrons in the nucleus of the atom
Isotopes: various forms of an element having the same atomic number but different mass number

14. Molecule: 2 or more atoms held together by bonds
Compound: 2 or more elements held together by bonds

17. Changes in Matter
Physical: changes in the properties but not the elements or compounds
Chemical: changes the chemical elements or compounds

18. Four States of Matter
Gas
Liquid
Plasma
Solid

19. Chemical Changes or Reactions

20. Energy
Capacity to do “work” and transfer heat

22. First Law of Thermodynamics
Energy is neither created nor destroyed
Energy only changes forms
You can’t get something for nothing
ENERGY IN = ENERGY OUT

23. Second Law of Thermodynamics
In every transformation, some energy is converted to heat
You cannot break even in terms of energy quality
When energy changes forms, some useful energy is converted to a less useable form