Environmental Sustainability

1. Environmental Sustainability

2. General Topics • Explain the Carbon Cycle, giving a local example of how and where it occurs • Describe your carbon footprint, along with knowing how to make changes to minimize your own footprint. • Describe food webs and food pyramids, along with discussing how energy is lost as we go to higher order consumers. • Describe how living organisms adapt to change • Describe different characteristics which makes living organisms unique • Explain the theory of evolution and how it is occurring around us at the moment

3. Carbon Cycle • Almost all life on earth is based on Carbon. Plants get energy through turning Carbon Dioxide (CO2) into Oxygen (O2). • Like water, Carbon is recycled continually. It might be in the air, in an animal, in the ground as oil or even in a tree. • When humans use energy, we use carbon. As such, we should try an reduce how much energy we use to reduce our use of carbon.

5. More Information • Read Page 313 of Biology for You. • Most carbon is stored in living things or in the ground (coal, gas, oil). • Too much Carbon in the atmosphere (air) is a major problem as it causes Global Warming (heating of earths temperature) • Carbon in air is mainly removed through photosynthesis (plants) and being absorbed by Limestone (rocks) • Carbon makes its way into the air through respiration (living things breathing) and burning objects)/

6. Local Example • The sun shines. • Grass grows thanks to carbon in the air, nutrients in the soil and water. • Peter eats the grass and makes Carbon Dioxide as he breathes. • Sean hunts Peter and then eats him. His left overs are left on the ground to decompose (分解). • The carbon goes into the ground and makes Coal in a could of hundred of thousands of years.

7. Carbon Footprint • Your Carbon footprint is how much Carbon you use in your normal day. • Every time you eat something or use energy, you are using Carbon Dioxide. • Using too much Carbon Dioxide helps global warming which heats up the earth. • Completing some small changes can help reduce the amount of Carbon you use.

8. Carbon Footprint Continued • Ways to reduce your Carbon Footprint include: • Save hot water • Turn off lights when not needed • Sort your recycling at home, plus recycle! • Plant trees • Buy appliances that use less energy • Only replace objects when the really need to be replaced. A lot of energy is used to make new objects!

9. Continued • Walk or use public transport when possible. • Save energy. Do you really need you play computer games until 1AM every morning?? • Turn off appliances at the plug. • Get your car serviced regularly and don’t accelerate to red lights!! • When cooling, set the temp at 26 Degrees and 20 Degrees when heating.

10. Food Webs & Food Chains • All energy on earth starts with the sun. Plants get energy from the sun. • Animals that eat plants are called herbivores (草食動物). • Animals that eat herbivores are called carnivores (肉食動物). • Animals that eat plants and animals are called omnivores (雜食動物).

12. Food Webs Cont.. • A food chain/web shows how plants and animals eat each other for their own survival. • The main thing to notice is that the higher up the food chain you go, the less living things there will be. • This is because a large amount of energy is lost between the energy found in grass and a carnivore.

13. More Information • Please read the following pages from Biology for You Page 303-305. • Producers make their own energy. • Primary consumers get energy from the producers. • Secondary consumers eat the primary consumers (carnivores) etc.

14. Adaptions • When living things have offspring (子孫), they sometimes have mutations (突變). • If these mutations give that animal an advantage, then that living thing has adapted. • Some living things can also adapt (適應) to change quickly. This gives them a good advantage if the temperature, water, predators or prey change quickly

15. Adaption Examples • There are rabbits and Bilbys. Both eat the same food but rabbits breed quicker. If it rains and there is more food, the rabbits have an advantage. • There are two types of finches. One has a slightly larger beak that can eat small and large seeds. The plant which makes small seeds has a major disease and no longer makes seeds. The finch with a smaller beak then dies due to no food.

16. More Information • Read Page 267-269 in Biology For You.

17. Different Characteristics • There are two main types of cells. They are: • Prokaryotes: These are single celled organisms which have no nucleus. They do everything themselves – including digesting food, movement, getting rid of waste etc. They can live in a colony or by themselves. • Eukaryotes: These are multi celled organisms that have a nucleus. Most cells specialize to complete a certain job (like skin cell, heart cell etc).

18. Prokaryote

19. Eukaryote

20. Characteristics Cont. • Many living things reproduce through mitosis (sexual reproduction). This allows for many differences in the characteristics different living things have. • Different characteristics are needed for a healthy population. A lack of different characteristics may lead to problems. For example, European Royal Family and Pharaohs.

21. More Information • More information on P222-237. Just have a general read of this.

22. Evolution • Evolution is the gradual development of different species from a common ancestor. • It states that life on earth has changed over time. • Charles Darwin first suggested that different species of the same animal came from a common ancestor.

23. Examples • One examples can be seen in Giraffes. It’s common ancestor had a shorter neck. • However, over time some mutations occurred and gave that animal a competitive advantage. • That animal ended up replacing the shorter giraffes.

24. Other Examples • Locusts (蝗蟲) are like Jaren, they eat everything around them. Sometimes locusts need to travel long distances to get to food in countries like the United States. • As such, the locusts which can travel longer distances will have an advantage and will have more offspring. • Those insects will then replace or become the dominant ones of the species.

25. Extra Information • Read Pages 264-273 in Biology for You.