Unit 6

Vocabulary

Atmosphere: Layer of air surrounding the Earth's surface.


Lithosphere: Hard outer layer of Earth. Consist of rocks and soils.


Plate Tectonics: The outer layer of lithosphere moving by the movement of the mantle.

Tectonic Cycle: Cycle of the mountain belts over the period of time.


Divergent Plate Boundaries: Occurs beneath the Ocean lithosphere. Convection current lifts up the lithosphere layer and creates a volcano.

Convergent Plate Boundaries: When two plates run and collide each other.


Transform Fault Boundary: Where plates slide each other.

Physical Weathering: Rocks breaking apart without changing their chemical composition.

Chemical Weathering:  Rock break apart due to the chemical reactions.

Erosion: Gradual destruction of rocks due to other physical effects.

Deposition:  When sediments like soil and rocks are added to the land.

Cation Exchange Capacity: Amount of cation that soil can hold.

Base saturation: Amount of basic cations that occupy the cation exchange sites divided by the total CEC.

Soil Degradation: Degraded soil quality due to wrong use of the soil. For example if the farmers deplete the land and continue to farm on the same land over and over again, soil degradation will happen to the land.

Ores: Natural solid material. Can be a metal or a mineral that can be later valuable.


Big Picture Reflection

Human Impact: Humans require a lot of resources and they are all from the environment around us. To contain resources like oil, coal, iron, and other valuable minerals like diamonds, rubies, and etc, humans have to deplete the land. Mountaintop removal, open pit, strip, subsurface, and placer are all caused by human actions.

Environmental Impact:  Due to the mountaintop removal, open pit, strip, and etc, many species are losing their original habitat. Continued alteration of the original environment will eventually cause alteration in not only the animal's lives but in our lives.

Economic Impact: There is a huge industry of steal, iron, coal, and valuable minerals. These industries are part of our economy, providing not only the needed products to the customers, but jobs to millions of people all around the world. But most of the resources that we use and need are not renewable. This means that these resources will run out someday and will have a huge impact on the companies and the world economy. Trading materials will stop, causing problems in international relations and market.

Government Legislation: Federal Land Policy and Management Act prevents unnecessary degradation of federal lands. This will help the lands to be nutrient rich instead of having a soil degradation. This will also have an impact on our lives because our crops will be more nutrient rich.

UNIT 5 BLOG

VOCABULARY

CBR-  Crude Birth Rate. Number of birth among 1,000 people in a year.


CDR- Crude Death Rate. Number of death amonng 1,000 people in a year.


TFR-  Total Fertility Rate. Average number of children born under per woman.


Replacement Level Fertility- Levels of childbearing. Normally around 2.1


Population Momentum- Population growth at a national level. For example, if the country is over the replacement level fertility rate, the nation's population momentum will be increasing.

Net Migration Rate- Number of people leaving and entering the country per 1,000 in a country.


Family Planning- Restricting the number of children each household can have.

Affluence-  Amounts of resources and wealth each person has in a country.


IPAT equation- Impact = Population x Affluence x Technology. This equation tells us how those three factors have an impact on our environment.


GDP- Gross Domestic Product. Value of all the products and services produced in a country in a specific amount of time.


Population Pyramid-



MAKING CONNECTIONS

    The first stage of demographic transition shows a slow population growth. In this stage there is both high birth and death rate which cancels each other out and keeps a stable yet slow growing population. This stage occurs when the country is still not modernized and is far from the industrial age. There is no medicine or any technology development, therefore many people die off with sickness and have lot more children due to their lack of education and technology. Lot of deaths are not only the adults but the children also so the child mortality rate and infant mortality rates are high. People usually die early in this stage unlike people in stage 3 or 4. Most of the people's occupation in this stage are agricultural. They live off of crops and live stocks. In this stage, there are rarely any environmental impact that humans have on earth. They just use the soil to grow their crops and grow animals for their fur and meat. Like mentioned before, this is before the industrial age so there is rarely any pollution and excessive use of resources. 
     The second stage, unlike the first stage, has a rapid population growth. The country becomes modernized and became more aware of sanitation and more food and water. This decrease the death rate of the country when the birth rate still remains high. Children are able to get vaccination and more sanitized care and are able to avoid child and infant mortality rate. But at this stage, people are still not yet very informed about birth control pills so the amount of children in each house hold is still very high. People were probably having a lot of children because they needed someone to take care of them once they get old and more children to support their family. Humans are probably impacting the environment more than they did in phase one. As people get more informed not only sanitation but also more developed technology and increase amount of food consumption.
     The third stage is a stable population growth. The country enters the industrial age and people get more education and get informed on birth control. People start to have less children per family. Their income also increase due to the stable economy and abundance in resources and increase in affluence. Since technology is developed the death rate drops down low but at the same time the birth rate also drops down due to more working couples and birth control pills. This stage is probably when humans start to use excessive amounts of resources from the environment and cause pollution in air, soil, and water. More factories are created, more transportation systems, and people are in need of more goods to keep their daily life comfortable. 
      Finally the stage four shows the declining population growth. By this stage, countries have reached a high level of affluence, education, and technology. At this stage, the population pyramid looks like an upside down pyramid, having large number of elderly people and less amount of younger population. Like mentioned in stage 3, lot more people are having less children due to their work and birth control and in this stage, women have almost equal rights as men and play a strong role in a society. Also due to the high level of technology, older people are living longer, their maximum age reaching around 80. Those people will die off soon and the country will be left will small amounts of younger people to support their earlier generations. This stage has reached the maximum level of technology and affluence. Their use of resources are ever high and literally every ting they use are made in a factory which cause high environmental pollution. But due to their developed technology, they prevent the pollution from causing greater problems. 

CURRENT EVENT

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/18/world/global-number-of-youths-is-highest-ever-un-reports.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3As%2C%7B%222%22%3A%22RI%3A17%22%7D&_r=0

Nearly in all 33 poorest countries in the world has over population. That is due to the lack of education and less developed technology and information on birth control. And due to this increasing child birth, number of youths are increasing massively. The pros might be the fact that these youths will reach their twenties and thirties and will be able to work and possibly help the economy of the country. But the cons are the fact that these young people will reach their reproductive stage soon and will have children. Even if they have few children, due to their massively large population, it will increase the population farther. 

BIG PICTURE REFLECTION

Human Impact
As the population grows it effects the whole community and environment. Starting from the phase one of the demographic transition, human population has been increasing. As people pass the agricultural age and industrial age, increasing the technology and education, people started to live longer and almost every children born are able to grow as a healthy adult. But as this cycle goes on and on, people start to need more resources to support the massive population. Especially in poor countries where it is still under developing stage, population is increasing exponentially.

Environmental Impact
Increasing human population requires more resources. The main thing will be the food source. In order to make more food source for more  people, farmers deprive the soil and land that is available to them. Forests are disappearing because farmers are cutting down the tress, not only for the lumber but for more land. Then they plant various crops on that land for years and years, taking out all the nutrients inside the land. This decrease the amount of land and nutrients that are also crucial for other animals from that land. Not only the land but the factories also create problems for the environment. All the chemicals that are coming from the factories pollute the water and air which are the most crucial factors for humans and other species on earth. 

Economic Effect
In developing countries, people are always working yet not earning enough money to support their families. But in developed countries people's affluence is high and are economically stable. These situations continue and the gap between the two types of countries are increasing. 

Government Legislation
One of the most famous law in family planning is the China's one child policy. Due to their massive population and increase in pollution, the government decided to restrict the number of children to only one per family. This did make the population in China stabilize. These restrictions may be viewed as too much government interfering in personal life but I believe that these laws should be used in other developing countries who face the same problems 

Unit 4 Vocabulary

Species Richness- Number of species in a sample community or an environment.

Species Evenness- whether an ecosystem is dominated by one type of species or all of its species have similar abundances.


Microevolution- evolution among a small group of species, below species level.


Macroevolution- evolution occurs in larger categories of organisms











Evolution by natural selection- The environment decides where individuals survive and reproduce.

( Demeter)

Evolution by artificial selection- humans decide to breed individuals however they want it to be. Unnatural.


Allopatric Speciation- a population split by geographic barriers. Over time the two becomes two different distinct species.


Sympatric speciation- While inhabiting the same region, new species evolve from one ancestral species.

Genetically Modified Organisms- Just like evolution by artificial selection, GMO is unnatural. DNA is altered in a species that does not occur naturally.

Fundamental Niche- a specific role that a species play in the ecosystem. This can be defined by its habits, behaviors and interaction with other organisms.

Exponential growth model- usually shaped like a J. With intrinsic growth rate denoted as r and an equation Nt = Noe^rt. This occurs when population is not limited by any resource sand its number shoots up.

Logistic growth model- usually shaped like S. The early growth is exponential but it eventually slows down and the growth rate eventually becomes zero and be stable when it hits the carrying capacity.

Carrying Capacity- basically the maximum point where the number of species can go up to in a given environment.

Keystone species- a vital species in an environment. Other species depend on this a lot and the environment itself can change drastically if the keystone species are removed.



Biodiversity Hot Spots

• Biodiversity Hot Spots were first founded by Norman Myers from Oxford University. He found out that the reason for uneven biodiversity is because of endemic species. These species are those that live in a very small area of the world and nowhere else. And these areas contain large proportions of almost all the species on Earth and these areas are called Biodiversity Hot Spots.
• My Hot Spot is located in Japan. 
• 
• Humid sub tropics in the south to the boreal zone in the north.

• Japanese Serow (Capricornis Crispus) is one of the endemic animals in Japan. It is a Japanese goat antelope and  it lives primarily around north and central Honshu. It was near extinction in the 1950's by excessivis hunting by humans

• Shriane-aoi (Glaucitium Paulmatum) (Japanese wood poppy) is usually found in Hakkaido and Honshu area in Japan. It is usually grouped in white or purple flowers.
• Being an endemic species means that species live in a very small part of the world but nowhere else. So the reason why Japanese serow and Japanese wood poppy are specifically called Japanese in front of their name is because that specific kind of species is only present in Japan. 
• Japan is located on the intersection of three of the Earth's tectonic plates. This causes continuous earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, hot springs, and mountains which contributes to the lack of biodiversity in Japan. Also the large mountain ranges create extreme differences in climate in various regions. Some areas are snowy and other areas (near the pacific) are dry and hot and these climate differences can also play in role of lack of biodiversity. Another reason can be that Japan has a lot of islands which cause isolation of the environment and cause endemic species. 
• Japanese government created a law called Basic Environment Law which prevents serious industrial pollution and extinction of species. They also help to preserve areas that are still not touched by humans and to protect rare and endemic species in those regions.

Pick a Side
There are many things that plays to create and ideal condition where species can adapt to it fast.and Species Evenness is one of them. If an area is dominated by one specific species than it will be hard for other species to adapt to that environment unless that species is stronger than the previous one. But if the area has similar abundance in all species than it will be a lot easier for the new species to adapt to that area.. Another one is the Species Richness. If a certain number of species are extremely low and the new species needs that species to survive, the new species won't be able to adapt to that environment. This leads to the next term, the Keystone Species. If the Keystone Species stay and maintain the habitat, other species will be able to adapt quicker and be stable in a given environment. And these Keystone Species are called the Ecosystem Engineers. They maintain the habitat for other species.  The last thing is the Evolution by Natural Selection. This means that humans do not intervene in the process of reproduction and survival of species. Which also means that nothing will be out of order and not one species will be extremely abundant than the other and all species will reproduce in nature's order and this will definitely help new species to adapt to the environment quicker than in the area where humans practiced Evolution by Artificial Selection. 

Big Picture 
Human Impact- There are unlimited thing that humans can do to change the environment and they usually turn out the have a negative result on the environment. Fore example, Evolution by Artificial Selection is cause by humans. In order to get desired species, humans breed certain types of species together, or create new species, breaking the nature's law. This can cause unpredictable consequences when these man made or man selected species go out in the wild.
Environmental Impact- Just like Japan, the environment itself can cause isolation of species which later creates endemic species. Due to its mountain ranges, islands, constant volcanic eruptions, and earthquakes, Japan is known to be the Biodiversity Hot Spot that has numerous endemic species. 
Economic Effect/ Government Legislation- Due to the lack of biodiversity, either man caused or naturally caused, the government is making various types of laws to protect the near extinct species and areas like biodiversity hot spots and area that are almost untouched by humans to preserve that area as best as possible. But these government legislation are not free. They are supported by citizen's taxes. And these days, American economy is not doing so well and spending extra money on these legislation might cause complaints from people.