Course Snapshot for ENV101 - Environmental Science: GT-SC1

Unit 1 Module 1: Introduction, Policy and Ethics Learning Outcomes

1. Define sustainability.
2. List human activities that can potentially affect global ecosystems.
3. Describe the major ecosystem cycles and how are they interconnect.
4. Identify human activities that may contribute to the degradation of the ecosystem cycles.
5. Understand and explain the environmental laws, economics and policies related to the environment.
6. Explain the role of environmental ethics and justice issues.
7. Illustrate your world view related to social justice, economics and the environment. 
8. Justify your understanding and position as a citizen in the global world.

Unit 1 Module 2: Foundations of Environmental Science Learning Outcomes

Mapped to Course Competencies (above)

1. Distinguish among the following ecological levels: population, community, ecosystem, landscape, and biosphere.
2. Define energy flow, trophic level, and food web, summarizing how energy flows through a food web, naming the producers, consumers, and decomposers in your explanation.
3. Describe typical pyramids of numbers, biomass, and energy, defining open and closed systems.
4. State the first and second laws of thermodynamics and discuss the implications of these laws as they apply to organisms.
5. Describe the main steps of the biogeochemical cycles (carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, sulfur, and hydrolytic).
6. Summarize the effects of solar energy on the Earth's temperature and the Coriolis effect in producing atmospheric circulation and water flow patterns.
7. Define El Nino and La Nina and describe some of their effects.
8. Distinguish between weather and climate.
9. Define population, and explain the four factors that produce changes in population size.
10. Use intrinsic rate of increase, exponential population growth, and carrying capacity to explain the differences between J-shaped and S-shaped growth curves.
11. Distinguish between density-dependent and density-independent factors that affect population size, and give examples of each.
12. Define survivorship, and describe type I, type II, and type III survivorship curves.
13. Define meta-population, and distinguish between source and sink habitats.
14. Describe the factors that contribute to an organism's ecological niche.
15. Define competition, and relate the concepts of competitive exclusion and resource partitioning.
16. Define symbiosis, and distinguish among mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism.
17. Define predation, and describe the effects of natural selection on predator-prey relationships.
18. Define keystone species, and discuss the wolf as a keystone species.
19. Define biome and describe the components and characteristics of the nine major terrestrial biomes and the eight aquatic biomes.

Unit 2 Module 1: Humans and the Environment Learning Outcomes

Mapped to Course Competencies (above)

1. Explain the difference between endemic and emerging diseases. 
2. Summarize the problems associated with chemicals that exhibit persistence, bioaccumulation, and biological magnification in the environment.
3. Define toxicant and distinguish between acute and chronic toxicities. 
4. Describe how a dose-response curve helps determine the health effects of environmental pollutants.  
5. Define ecotoxicology and explain why knowledge of ecotoxicology is essential to human well-being.
6. Define risk and explain how risk assessment helps determine adverse health effects and explain how risk information can improve environmental decisions.
7. Explain why it is impossible to answer precisely how many people Earth can support – that is, Earth's carrying capacity for humans.
8. Define demography and summarize the history of human population growth.
9. Explain how highly developed and developing countries differ in population characteristics such as infant mortality rate, total fertility rate, and age structure.
10. Explain how population growth models work, and the relationship between economic development and population growth.
11. Define urbanization and describe trends in the distribution of people in rural and urban areas. 
12. Explain how cities are analyzed from an ecosystem perspective.

Unit 2 Module 2: Energy Learning Outcomes

Mapped to Course Competencies (above)

1. Explain the importance of the concentration of energy in a source.
2. Describe some advantages and disadvantages of conserving energy.
3. Describe the advantages and disadvantages of storing energy.
4. Discuss how policy decisions shape energy resource and technology development.
5. Define fossil fuel and distinguish among coal, oil, and natural gas.
6. Summarize the environmental problems associated with using coal. 
7. Briefly consider the environmental implications of using synfuels.
8. Contrast the advantages and disadvantages of solar thermal electric generation and
     photovoltaics in converting solar energy into electricity
9. Describe the locations that can make optimum use of wind energy and of hydropower,
     and compare the potential of wind energy and hydropower. 
10. Describe geothermal energy and tidal energy, the two forms of renewable energy that  are not direct or indirect results of solar energy.
11. Discuss the pros and cons of electric power produced by nuclear energy. 

Unit 3: Resources Learning Outcomes

Mapped to Course Competencies (above)

1. Define resource and the human connections to resources.
2. Describe biological diversity.
3. List the resources described in the unit and the human interactions with these resources.
4. Explain the global social equity issues related to the lack of or quality of resources.
5. Generate a list of the ecosystem services and discuss the ecological economic value to each of these services.

Unit 4: Pollution and Prevention Learning Outcomes

Mapped to Course Competencies (above)

1. List and describe all the major air pollutants, their sources and effects.
2. Explain how air pollutants can be measured, regulated, controlled and reduced.
3. Define climate change and its global effects on the biological and physical environment.
4. Define water pollution and give examples of each category of pollutant.
5. Generate examples of point and non-point source water pollution and treatment methods.
6.  Summarize the current crop production methods and generate solutions for disease control and crop protection of pests.
7. Synthesize persistent organic pollutants and effects of bioaccumilation on human and non-human species.
8. Compare and contrast conventionally grown and organically grown crops. 
9. Illustrate and explain the modern landfill and waste process and design; what are the issues that surround landfills and hazardous waste nationally and globally?
10. Generate sustainable solutions for solid and hazardous waste disposal.   
11. Evaluate how the the Earth' cycles and limited resources are linked to future development.
12. Demonstrate how loss in biological diversity would result in loss of ecosystem services.
13. Explain how humans are part of and dependent on the Earth's web of life.
14. Critisize the concept of consumption practices and its effects on carrying capacity globally.
15. Propose a personal and community plan for sustainable living.