In this lesson, students expand their understanding of solid waste management to include the idea of 3RC (reduce, reuse, recycle and compost). They will look at the effects of packaging decisions (reducing) and learn about engineering advancements in packaging materials and solid waste management. Also, they will observe biodegradation in a model landfill (composting).

Ecologists now accept human beings and our activities as a significant influence on the Earths ecology. ASTER data is being used to better understand urban ecology, in particular how humans build their cities and affect the surrounding environment. Will Stefanov of Arizona State University will present the first set of ASTER images of the urban skeleton of the amount of built structures in 12 cities around the world and discuss the Urban Environmental Monitoring project which will examine 100 urban centers to look for common features (or lack of them) in global city structure and monitor change over time.

Ecologists now accept human beings and our activities as a significant influence on the Earths ecology. ASTER data is being used to better understand urban ecology, in particular how humans build their cities and affect the surrounding environment. Will Stefanov of Arizona State University will present the first set of ASTER images of the urban skeleton of the amount of built structures in 12 cities around the world and discuss the Urban Environmental Monitoring project which will examine 100 urban centers to look for common features (or lack of them) in global city structure and monitor change over time.

This course is assembled from UC-approved college preparatory courses and is designed to acquaint students with the physical, ecological, social, and political principles of environmental science. The scientific method is used to analyze and understand the inter-relationships between humans and the natural environment. The course shows how ecological realities and the material desires of humans often clash, leading to environmental degradation and pollution. The course covers: Earth's Systems, Human Population Dynamics, Natural Resources, Environmental Quality, Global Changes, and Environment and Society.

Economics is the process by which humans manage their environment and its resources. The process is made up of a system of production, distribution and consumption of goods and services....

Although environmental laws are generally considered a 20th century phenomenon, attempts have been made to legislate environmental controls throughout history. In 2,700 B.C., the middle-eastern civilization in Ur passed laws protecting the few remaining forests in the region.....

Environmental issues are a concern of many, if not most, Americans. However, there is considerable disagreement on how such issues should be handled. Different people can interpret even a very general issue such as conservation very differently....

Families in developing nations are often larger, but less resource intensive (e.g., they use fewer resources per person) than those in more developed nations. However, increasingly human populations wish to have a "western" standard of living.

In natural systems, there is no such thing as waste. Everything flows in a natural cycle of use and reuse. Living organisms consume materials and eventually return them to the environment, usually in a different form, for reuse. Solid waste (or trash) is a human concept.......

This is a series of stories about what scientists do at the Agricultural Research Service. It is geared to kids 8 to 13 years old.

Auras instruments study tropospheric, or low-level atmospheric chemistry and will monitor of air pollution around the world on a daily basis. Aura measures five of the six "Criteria Pollutants" identified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The complexity of pollution transport makes it difficult to quantify how much industry contributes to poor local air quality.

Auras instruments study tropospheric, or low-level atmospheric chemistry and will monitor of air pollution around the world on a daily basis. Aura measures five of the six "Criteria Pollutants" identified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In this animation, Aura shows a large concentration of tropospheric ozone is being transported from South America to Africa.

Background information on the environmental impact of plastic. Incorporates an individual pupil survey and a class survey on plastic usage over a one week period.

In Chiapas, one of the poorest states in Mexico, an estimated 150,000 children are malnourished. To end this problem, governments have implemented food security policies, including food importation and industrial food production. In 2008 alone, Mexico imported 20 million tons of food. While these policies certainly help to remedy the problem in the short term, the massive importation of basic foodstuffs and incentives to industrial agriculture may widen social inequality, threaten health and deteriorate biodiversity and ecosystem services. I will present the objectives and achievements of initiatives born in the highlands of Chiapas to enhance local food production free of hazardous pesticides and appropriate to the culture of the region. Examples include the rescue of local knowledge for food production, a school gardens program and the Network of Producers and Consumers for Healthy Local Food.

Interactive animation showing the changes occurring to an ice-shelf in relation to the temperature of the surrounding water.
The animation has been created on the basis of the most recent models created by the modelling team of the antarctic research called ANDRILL.

Alexandra Marks reports on the challenges faced by minority businesses in Boston. She notes that Jet-A-Way is multi-million dollar company that recycles trash, industrial waste, and construction debris. Marks interviews Jesse Jeter (marketing director, Jet-A-Way) and company founders Ed Jeter and Darlene Jeter about the challenges they have faced as a minority business. Jesse Jeter says that racism is still a problem. Ed Jeter says that the business benefited minority quotas in the early years. Marks reports that the NAACP Leadership Development Training Conference was recently held in Boston. Marks's report includes footage from a luncheon held during the conference. Marks interviews William Singleton (president, Quest Publishing Company) about his experiences as an African American entrepreneur. Marks notes that minority-owned businesses often have trouble finding financing. Marks' report includes footage of operations at the Jet-A-Way recycling facility. This tape includes additional footage of operations at the Jet-A-Way recycling facility. This edition of the Ten O'Clock News also included the following item: Carmen Fields interviews Richard Taylor about the Republican Party and affirmative action.

Na dit hoofdstuk kan je de richtlijnen in een informatiebrochure over milieukwesties begrijpen.

Our human society consists of many intertwined Large Scale Socio-Technical Systems (LSSTS), such as infrastructures, industrial networks, the financial systems etc. Environmental pressures created by these systems on Earth’s carrying capacity are leading to exhaustion of natural resources, loss of habitats and biodiversity, and are causing a resource and climate crisis. To avoid this sustainability crisis, we urgently need to transform our production and consumption patterns. Given that we, as inhabitants of this planet, are part of a complex and integrated global system, where and how should we begin this transformation? And how can we also ensure that our transformation efforts will lead to a sustainable world?

LSSTS and the ecosystems that they are embedded in are known to be Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS). According to John Holland CAS are "...a dynamic network of many agents (which may represent cells, species, individuals, firms, nations) acting in parallel, constantly acting and reacting to what the other agents are doing. The control of a CAS tends to be highly dispersed and decentralized. If there is to be any coherent behavior in the system, it will have to to arise from competition and cooperation among the agents themselves. The overall behavior of the system is the result of a huge number of decisions made every moment" by many individual agents.

Understanding Complex Adaptive Systems requires tools that themselves are complex to create and understand. Shalizi defines Agent Based Modeling as "An agent is a persistent thing which has some state we find worth representing, and which interacts with other agents, mutually modifying each other’s states. The components of an agent-based model are a collection of agents and their states, the rules governing the interactions of the agents and the environment within which they live."

This course will explore the theory of CAS and their main properties. It will also teach you how to work with Agent Based Models in order to model and understand CAS.

Highlights of this course include: Major biological, chemical and physical components of the agricultural systems The scientific basis for understanding these systems and their management How has science influenced policies related to agriculture, food safety and environment in the United States? How have the policies evolved over time in the US? What has worked and what has not; what are the reasons and what are the consequences? Beyond science, what other factors influence policies? How do we link what we learn to ecological agriculture? How do we use what we learn for policy analysis?