APES Chapter 1 Flashcards

10963151215	environment	The sum of all the conditions surrounding us that influence life	0
10963151216	environmental science	The field of study that looks at interactions among human systems and those found in nature	1
10963151217	system	Any set of interacting components that infludence one another by exchanging energy or materials	2
10963151218	ecosystem	a partiular location on Earth distinguished by its mix of interacting biotic and abiotic components	3
10963151219	biotic	living	4
10963151220	abiotic	nonliving	5
10963151221	environmentalist	A person who participates in environmentalism, a social movement that seeks to protect the environment through lobbying, activism, and education	6
10963151222	environmental studies	The field of study that includes environmental science, environmental policy, economics, literature, and ethics among others	7
10963151223	ecosystem services	The process by which natural environments provide life-supporting resources	8
10963151224	environmental indicator	Something that describes the current state of an environmental system	9
10963151225	sustainability	Living on Earth in a way that allows humans to use its resources without depriving future generations of those resources	10
10963151226	biodiversity	The diversity of life forms in an environment	11
10963151227	species	A group of organisms that is distinct from other groups in its morphology, behavior, or biochemical properties	12
10963151228	speciation	The evolution of a new species	13
10963151229	background extinction rate	The average rate at which species become extinct over the long term	14
10963151230	greenhouse gases	a gas in Earth's atmosphere that traps heat near the surface	15
10963151231	anthropogenic	Derived from human activities	16
10963151232	development	Improvement in human well-being through economic advancement	17
10963151233	sustainable development	Development that balances current human well-being and economic advancement with resource management for the benefit of future generation	18
10963151234	biophilia	Love of life	19
10963151235	ecological footprint	A measure of how much an individual consumes, expressed in area of land	20
10963151236	scientific method	An objective way to explore the natural world, draw inferences for it, and predict the outcome of certain events, processes, or changes	21
10963151237	hypothesis	A testable theory or supposition about how something works	22
10963151238	null hypothesis	A prediction that there is no difference between groups or conditions, or	23
10963151239	replication	The data collection procedure of taking repeated measurements	24
10963151240	sample size	The number of times a measurement is replicated in the data collection process	25
10963151241	accuracy	How close a measured value is to the actual or true value	26
10963151242	precision	How close the repeated measurements of a sample are to one another	27
10963151243	uncertainty	An estimate of how much a measured or calculated vallue differs from a true value	28
10963151244	inductive reasoning	The process of making general statements from specific fats or examples	29
10963151245	deductive reasoning	The process of applying a general satement to specific facts or situations	30
10963151246	critical thinking	The process of questioning the soure of information, considering the methods used to obtain the information, and drawing conclusions; essential to all scientific endeavors	31
10963151247	theory	A hypothesis that has been repeatedly tested and confirmed by multiple groups of researchers and has reached wide acceptance	32
10963151248	control group	In a scientific investigation, a group that experiences exactly the same conditions as the experimental group, except for the single variable under study	33
10963151249	natural experiment	A natural event that acts an an experimental treatment in an ecosystem	34
10963151250	environmental justice	A social movement and field of study that focuses on eliminating disparities in the exposure of environmental harm to different ethnic and socioeconomic groups	35
10963151251	genetic diversity	A measure of the genetic variation among individuals in a population	36
10963151252	species diversity	The number of species in a region or in a particular type of habitat	37