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ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE

ILMU LINGKUNGAN

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1. Environmental Science: Definition, Scope and Importance 

The science of Environment studies is a multi-disciplinary science because it comprises various branches of studies like chemistry, physics, medical science, life science, agriculture, public health, sanitary engineering etc. It is the science of physical phenomena in the environment. It studies of the sources, reactions, transport, effect and fate of physical a biological species in the air, water and soil and the effect of from human activity upon these

2. Environmental Science: Natural Resources

A natural resource may be defined as any material given to us by nature which can be transformed in a way that it becomes more valuable and useful. For an example wood is used for making furniture. Yarn obtained from cotton is used for weaving cloth. Likewise, various machine, tools and household goods are made of metals. Now furniture, clothes, machine, tools are more valuable than their raw form i.e. raw form i.e. wood, cotton and metal, respectively. The wood, metal resources. It is impossible to obtain valuable items from any resources. Thus, water, minerals, forests, wildlife as well as human beings are resources. Any material may be called, as a resource provided and appropriate technology is available to transform that into more valuable goods. 

3. Environmental Science: Ecosystem

No life exists in a vacuum. Materials and forces which constitutes its environment and from which it must derive its needs surround every living organism. Thus, for its survival, a plant, an animal, or a microbe cannot remain completely aloof in a shell. Instead, it requires from its environment a supply of energy, a supply of materials, and a removal of waste products. 

For various basic requirements, each living organism has to depend and also to interact with different nonliving or abiotic and living or biotic components or the environment.

1. Abiotic

The abiotic environmental components include basic inorganic elements and compounds such as water and carbon dioxide, calcium and oxygen, carbonates and phosphates besides such physical factors as soil, rainfall, temperature, moisture, winds, currents, and solar radiation with its concomitants of light and heat.

2. Biotic

The biotic environmental factors comprise plants, animals, and microbes; They interact in a fundamentally energy-dependent fashion. In the words of Helena Curtis “The scientific study of the interactions of organisms with their physical environment and with each other, is called ecology”. According to Herreid II “It mainly concerns with the directive influences of abiotic and biotic environmental factors over the growth, distribution behaviour and survival of organisms. 

4. Environmental Science: Biodiversity and Conservation

Today most of us live in a socially and technologically evolved society where our exploitive potential and knowledge of nature has increased academically. The problem is that our contact with it has diminished morally. It may have diminished to such an extent as to be dangerous to us and to the nature itself. Biodiversity is the vast array of all the species of plants, animals, insects and the microorganisms inhabiting the earth either in the aquatic or the terrestrial habitats. The human civilization depends directly or indirectly upon this biodiversity for their very basic needs of survival–food, fodder, fuel, fertilizer, timber, liquor, rubber, leather, medicines and several raw materials. This diversity’s the condition for the long-term sustainability of the environment, continuity of life on earth and the maintenance of its integrity

5. Environmental Science: Pollution and its Factors

Pollution may be defined as an undesirable change in the physical, chemical or biological characteristics of air, water and land that may be harmful to human life and other animals, living conditions, industrial processes and cultural assets. Pollution can be natural or man made. The agents that pollute are called pollutants. 

6. Environmental Science: Social Issues

The term sustainable was development and introduced by the World Commission on Environment and Development (The Brundtland Commission), in its seminal report of 1987, Our Common Future. The concept has terrifically worked out in creating public awareness for sustaining the planet with better management. The sustainable development has been  defined as “meeting the need of the present generation without compromising the needs of future generation”. The concept precisely emphasizes upon using the earth resources judiciously and compensating for it in some sense e.g. if cut few trees to support our lives, we should also implant some new ones at some site. This would result in. maintaining the earths fine balance between resource consumption and resource generation. 

7. Environmental Science: Human Population and Environment

Human society is governed by interaction and cooperation with other human beings. Latest trends in technology and medical knowledge are available to control human population growth and to improve the health. Still population continues to increase and poverty become greater than ever before. Humans are social animals who have freedom of choice. They largely take decision by heart rather than mind. It is evident from historical records, social situations, ethical and religious considerations and personal desires. Today the greatest hindrance to controlling human population is no more biological but falls into the province of philosophers, theologians, politicians, sociologists, and others. The cause of the population problem is to be understood if we are to deal successfully with the population problem. 

8. Environmental Science: Field Trip

Today, educationists have come to realize that the immediate Environment is a wonderful curriculum laboratory providing extremely dynamic, interesting and real life opportunities for learning. In its historical records every Environment has the stories of people and resources woven into the pattern of national development. Basic social processes and problems operate in every Environment in action for or against. As we investigate social problems they become concrete in our own communities. 

9. Environmental Science: Modern Methods

“Even the best curriculum and the most perfect syllabus remains dead unless quickened into life by the right methods of teaching and the right kind of teachers.” According to Secondary. Education Commission. As the means of reaching predetermined ends method forms the most important link in the total teaching-learning chain. It is middle link connecting the objectives with its value. It determines the quality of result. The Environmental Science is a very important subject at the higher secondary level and for its teaching teacher should have to select effective methods and effective strategies to teach them. 

10. Environmental Science: Modern Library

An important centre of resources for instructional purposes in Environmental Studies is the modern school library. Modern instructional program emphasizes the training of pupils to think and form judgments independently. This requires the provisions of a variety of material of which school library is the central clearing-house. As an important service agency it provides guidance to teachers in curriculum construction to pupils in the selection of books and to adults in reading and in counseling. In a democratic society like ours, the school library lays the foundation for free enquiry and intellectual development, so essential for sharing public opinion. 

11. Environmental Science: Modern and Effective Teacher

“We are, however, convinced that the most important factor in the contemplated educational reconstruction is the teacher-his personal qualities, his educational qualifications, his professional training and the place that he occupies in the school as well as in the community. The reputation of a school! And its influence on the life of the community invariably depends on the kind of teachers working in it.

—Secondary Education Commission (1952-53)

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