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State of our Earth
APES Studying the State of our Earth Chap 1
Term | Definition |
---|---|
Fracking | Hydraulic fracturing, a method of oil and gas extraction that uses high-pressure fluids to force open cracks in rocks deep underground. |
Environment | The sum of all the conditions surrounding us that influence life. |
Environmental science | The field of study that looks at interactions among human systems and those found in nature. |
Ecosystem | A particular location on Earth with interacting biotic and abiotic components. |
Biotic | Living. |
Abiotic | Nonliving. |
Environmentalist | A person who participates in environmentalism, a social movement that seeks to protect the environment through lobbying, activism, and education. |
Environmental studies | The field of study that includes environmental science and additional subjects such as environmental policy, economics, literature, and ethics. |
Ecosystem services | The processes by which life- supporting resources such as clean water, timber, fisheries, and agricultural crops are produced. |
Environmental indicator | An indicator that describes the current state of an environmental system. |
Biodiversity | The diversity of life forms in an environment. |
Genetic diversity | A measure of the genetic variation among individuals in a population. |
Species | A group of organisms that is distinct from other groups in its morphology (body form and structure), behavior, or biochemical properties. |
Species diversity | The number of species in a region or in a particular type of habitat. |
Speciation | The evolution of new species. |
Background extinction rate | The average rate at which species become extinct over the long term. |
Greenhouse gases | Gases in Earth’s atmosphere that trap heat near the surface. |
Anthropogenic | Derived from human activities. |
Development | Improvement in human well-being through economic advancement. |
Sustainability | Living on Earth in a way that allows humans to use its resources without depriving future generations of those resources. |
Sustainable development | Development that balances current human well-being and economic advancement with resource management for the benefit of future generations. |
Biophilia | Love of life. |
Ecological footprint | A measure of how much an individual consumes, expressed in area of land. |
Scientific method | An objective method to explore the natural world, draw inferences from it, and predict the outcome of certain events, processes, or changes. |
Hypothesis | A testable conjecture about how something works. |
Null hypothesis | A prediction that there is no difference between groups or conditions, or a statement or an idea that can be falsified, or proved wrong. |
Replication | The data collection procedure of taking repeated measurements. |
Sample size (n) | The number of times a measurement is replicated in data collection. |
Accuracy | How close a measured value is to the actual or true value. |
Precision | How close the repeated measurements of a sample are to one another. |
Uncertainty | An estimate of how much a measured or calculated value differs from a true value. |
Theory | A hypothesis that has been repeatedly tested and confirmed by multiple groups of researchers and has reached wide acceptance. |
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. |
Natural experiment | A natural event that acts as an experimental treatment in an ecosystem. |