EnvirOnmEnTal SciEncE - Troop 109 - Home
EnvironmentalScience
How to Use This PamphletThe secret to successfully earning a merit badge is for you to use boththe pamphlet and the suggestions of your counselor.Your counselor can be as important to you as a coach is to an athlete.Use all of the resources your counselor can make available to you.This may be the best chance you will have to learn about this particularsubject. Make it count.If you or your counselor feels that any information in this pamphlet isincorrect, please let us know. Please state your source of information.Merit badge pamphlets are reprinted annually and requirementsupdated regularly. Your suggestions for improvement are welcome.Send comments along with a brief statement about yourself to YouthDevelopment, S209 Boy Scouts of America 1325 West Walnut HillLane P.O. Box 152079 Irving, TX 75015-2079.Who Pays for This Pamphlet?This merit badge pamphlet is one in a series of more than 100 coveringall kinds of hobby and career subjects. It is made available for youto buy as a service of the national and local councils, Boy Scouts ofAmerica. The costs of the development, writing, and editing of themerit badge pamphlets are paid for by the Boy Scouts of America inorder to bring you the best book at a reasonable price.
BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICAMERIT BADGE SERIESENVIRONMENTALSCIENCE
Requirements1. M ake a timeline of the history of environmental science inAmerica. Identify the contribution made by the Boy Scoutsof America to environmental science. Include dates, namesof people or organizations, and important events.2. D efine the following terms: population, community, ecosystem, biosphere, symbiosis, niche, habitat, conservation,threatened species, endangered species, extinction, pollutionprevention, brownfield, ozone, watershed, airshed, nonpointsource, hybrid vehicle, fuel cell.3. D o ONE activity from EACH of the following categories(using the activities in this pamphlet as the basis forplanning and projects):A. Ecology(1) C onduct an experiment to find out how living thingsrespond to changes in their environments. Discussyour observations with your counselor.(2) C onduct an experiment illustrating the greenhouseeffect. Keep a journal of your data and observations.Discuss your conclusions with your counselor.(3) D iscuss what is an ecosystem. Tell how it is maintained in nature and how it survives.B. Air Pollution(1) P erform an experiment to test for particulates thatcontribute to air pollution. Discuss your findingswith your counselor.35892ISBN 978-0-8395-3363-4 2006 Boy Scouts of America2010 PrintingBANG/Brainerd, MN4-2010/059741
(2) R ecord the trips taken, mileage, and fuel consumptionof a family car for seven days, and calculate howmany miles per gallon the car gets. Determinewhether any trips could have been combined(“chained”) rather than taken out and back. Usingthe idea of trip chaining, determine how many milesand gallons of gas could have been saved in thoseseven days.(3) E xplain what is acid rain. In your explanation, tellhow it affects plants and the environment and thesteps society can take to help reduce its effects.C. Water Pollution(1) C onduct an experiment to show how living thingsreact to thermal pollution. Discuss your observationswith your counselor.(2) C onduct an experiment to identify the methods thatcould be used to mediate (reduce) the effects of anoil spill on waterfowl. Discuss your results withyour counselor.(3) D escribe the impact of a waterborne pollutant onan aquatic community. Write a 100-word reporton how that pollutant affected aquatic life, whatthe effect was, and whether the effect is linkedto biomagnification.D. Land Pollution(1) C onduct an experiment to illustrate soil erosion bywater. Take photographs or make a drawing of thesoil before and after your experiment, and make aposter showing your results. Present your poster toyour counselor.(2) P erform an experiment to determine the effect ofan oil spill on land. Discuss your conclusions withyour counselor.(3) P hotograph an area affected by erosion. Share yourphotographs with your counselor and discuss whythe area has eroded and what might be done to helpalleviate the erosion.Environmental Science3
E. Endangered Species(1) D o research on one endangered species found inyour state. Find out what its natural habitat is, whyit is endangered, what is being done to preserve it,and how many individual organisms are left in thewild. Prepare a 100-word report about the organism,including a drawing. Present your report to yourpatrol or troop.(2) D o research on one species that was endangered orthreatened but which has now recovered. Find outhow the organism recovered, and what its new statusis. Write a 100-word report on the species and discussit with your counselor.(3) W ith your parent’s and counselor’s approval, workwith a natural resource professional to identify twoprojects that have been approved to improve thehabitat for a threatened or endangered species inyour area. Visit the site of one of these projects andreport on what you saw.F. Pollution Prevention, Resource Recovery, and Conservation(1) L ook around your home and determine 10 ways yourfamily can help reduce pollution. Practice at leasttwo of these methods for seven days and discusswith your counselor what you have learned.(2) D etermine 10 ways to conserve resources or useresources more efficiently in your home, at school,or at camp. Practice at least two of these methodsfor seven days and discuss with your counselorwhat you have learned.(3) P erform an experiment on packaging materials tofind out which ones are biodegradable. Discussyour conclusion with your counselor.
4. C hoose two outdoor study areasthat are very different from oneanother (e.g., hilltop vs. bottom ofa hill; field vs. forest; swamp vs.dry land). For BOTH study areas,do ONE of the following:A. M ark off a plot of 4 squareyards in each study area, andcount the number of speciesfound there. Estimate howmuch space is occupied byeach plant species and thetype and number of nonplantspecies you find. Write a reportthat adequately discusses thebiodiversity and populationdensity of these study areas.Discuss your report withyour counselor.B. M ake at least three visits to each of the two study areas(for a total of six visits), staying for at least 20 minuteseach time, to observe the living and nonliving parts ofthe ecosystem. Space each visit far enough apart thatthere are readily apparent differences in the observations.Keep a journal that includes the differences you observe.Then, write a short report that adequately addresses yourobservations, including how the differences of the studyareas might relate to the differences noted, and discussthis with your counselor.5. U sing the construction project provided or a plan you createon your own, identify the items that would need to beincluded in an environmental impact statement for theproject planned.6. F ind out about three career opportunities in environmentalscience. Pick one and find out the education, training, andexperience required for this profession. Discuss this withyour counselor, and explain why this profession mightinterest you.Environmental Science5
ContentsWhat Is Environmental Science? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9The Roots of Environmental Science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12Principles of Ecology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17Human Impact on the Biosphere. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33Taking Action. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64Careers in Environmental Science. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68Activities in Environmental Science. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71Environmental Science Resources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93Environmental Science7
.What Is Environmental Science?What IsEnvironmental Science?Scientists ask questions about things they observe and then tryto find out the answers. An environmental scientist asks questions about the environment and tries to learn the answers byobserving and experimenting. While earning the EnvironmentalScience merit badge, you will get a taste of what it is like to bean environmental scientist, as you make observations and carryout experiments to complete the activities and projects requiredfor the badge.The naturaldevelopment ofa living thing overtime is its naturalhistory. Peoplewho studynatural historyare naturalists.From Nature Study to EcologyPeople have always been curious about the natural world andhave studied it in order to survive. Early humans learned whichplants were good to eat and which ones made them sick. Theylearned the habits of animals that they hunted for food andhow to avoid those animals that preyed upon humans.Today, many people observe plants and animals inthe wild as a hobby. Some go hiking to find rare wildflowers. Others keep binoculars and field guidesnear a window so they can identify the birds thatvisit backyard bird feeders. Because many peopleover the centuries have studied nature closely,much is known today about the naturalhistory of plants and animals.Plants and animals, however, do notlive alone in the environment. A livingthing’s environment is made up of all of theliving and nonliving materials around it, includingplants, animals, air, soil, heat, light, food, water, andanything else that plays any role in its life. In addition,all plants and animals are connected to other living things.Environmental Science9
What Is Environmental Science?.The study ofliving things andThey interact with one another and with the nonliving parts oftheir environment. Living things depend upon the materialsfound in their environment to survive. Anything that disturbsthe environment may affect the living things found there.their interactionswith one anotherand with theirenvironments isknown as ecology.Scientistswho study theinteractionsamong organismsand theirenvironmentsare ecologists.Using This PamphletAn environmental scientist needs to know a great deal aboutliving things, about their ways of life, and about the environmentand its effect on life. For instance, an environmental scientistmight study how the chemistry of soil affects ant behavior.Some other things that an environmental scientist might studyinclude plants in a forest, makeup of rainwater, purity of air,and how many living things are found in a given environment.The activities in this pamphlet will introduce you to the widerange of subjects that environmental scientists study.10Environmental Science
.What Is Environmental Science?Steps in the Scientific MethodImagine that you are watching a line of antscarrying pieces of food from a picnic site toan anthill. If you push the ants aside,they soon line up again. You wantto know how the ants know whereto line up. To try to answer that question,you follow a series of steps known as scientific method. First, you state the problem you want to solve—howants know where to line up. Then you gather information about ants. Perhaps you do some research onants in the library. Next, you form a hypothesis, that is, you formulatea statement or question that can be tested. Yourhypothesis might be a statement such as: Ants knowwhere to line up because they can see one another. You test your hypothesis by performing an experiment.In your experiment, you place food in one corner ofa box and ants at the other end. When the ants havefound the food and have formed a line to carry it, youdisrupt the line, and then turn off the lights. Now you analyze your results. Did the ants line upagain? If the ants lined up even in the dark, you mightdraw a conclusion that they do not need to see oneanother in order to line up, so your hypothesis iswrong. Your conclusion would be that ants must usesome sense other than sight to line up. Sometimes,when the results of an experiment do not support ahypothesis, you can use what you learned to formulate a new hypothesis and carry out a new experimentto test the new hypothesis.Not all hypotheses can be tested by doing an experiment in a laboratory. Some hypotheses are tested byobserving events and collecting facts. You could testwhich kinds of birdseed a particular type of bird prefersjust by observing what birds eat at several feeders.Environmental Science11
The Roots of Environmental Science.The Roots ofEnvironmental ScienceAmerican Indians used forests and other environmental resourcesfor centuries before European settlers arrived on the continent.In the Pacific Northwest, tribes used forest materials to makecedar houses, boats, and clothing. In the Northeast and upperMidwest they built birch-bark canoes. Forests also were tremendous sources of food, both from plants and from wildlife.At times, tribes overused certain forested areas. Sometimesthey intentionally burned forests to clear land for cultivation orto make it easier to pursue game. If a forest became overusedor too heavily damaged to support a tribe, the group wouldmove on and the forest, left alone, would recover.As more and more European settlers arrived in NorthAmerica, their need for natural resources grew. They killedwildlife, cut trees, and contaminated the water near their settlements. When the pressure on natural resources in a settled areagrew too great, people moved westward and began the cycleagain. Settlers believed they could always move farther westto find more space and more resources.12Environmental Science
.The Roots of Environmental ScienceEarly on, however, some settlers realized that the abundantnatural resources of this new land were not limitless. In 1626,Plymouth Colony passed a law to control the cutting and saleof timber on colony lands. People in Newport, Rhode Island,agreed in 1639 to restrict deer hunting to six months a year. InPennsylvania in 1681, William Penn decreed that one acre mustbe left forested for every five acres of forest that were cleared.By the 1830s, people such as artist GeorgeCatlin and naturalist Henry David Thoreau werewriting about the need to preserve some of theunique environments of North America innational parks. People dedicated to environmentalprotection and wildlife conservation foundedgroups such as American Forests (1875), theAppalachian Mountain Club (1876), the New YorkAudubon Society (1886), the Boone and CrockettClub (1887), the Sierra Club (1892), the AmericanScenic and Historic Preservation Society (1895),and the Izaak Walton League of America (1922).Government management of special areas canbe traced back to the creation of the first nationalpark—Yellowstone—set aside in 1872. Congresspassed the Creative Act in 1891, designating muchof the nation’s publicly owned forests as protectedforest reserves. The Forest Reserve Act of 1891followed, changing the forest reserves to nationalforests and charging their managers with improving and protecting the nation’s long-term supply of wood andwater. The Bureau of Forestry became the Forest Service in1905 when the forest reserves were transferred to theDepartment of Agriculture. In 1916, Congress established theNational Park Service. The Park Service’s mission is to preservenatural and cultural resources for the enjoyment, education,and inspiration of current and future generations.In the decades that followed, forward-thinking agencypersonnel and a conservation movement made up of dedicatedcitizens established the idea of protecting some forests andother wilderness areas as reminders of the way they werebefore humans intervened and of balancing the use of publiclands for recreation, timber, and biological resources. TheMultiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act of 1960 officially establishedmultiple-use management of the forests.Environmental Science13
The Roots of Environmental Science.The Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Army Corps ofEngineers, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Natural ResourcesConservation Service, and other public agencies also strive tomanage public lands that fall within their administrative boundaries. State and local agencies oversee smaller acreages of public lands. Private landowners with forested properties—fromlarge forest-product companies to families with a few acres oftrees around their homes—have a stake in the proper management of forest resources, too.The Slaughter of the BisonHuge herds of millions ofbison, or American buffalo,were once a common sighton the Great Plains. By1884, however, settlers hadhunted so many of themthat only 300 were left.The survival of the bison islargely credited to the effortsof Dr. William T. Hornaday,who led conservationefforts to protect the bison.Today, Scouts can earn theWilliam T. Hornaday Awardfor distinguished servicein conservation.From Conservation to EnvironmentalismDuring the late 1800s and early 1900s, people began to speakout about human activities that were causing serious environmental problems such as air and water pollution. Americanzoologist William T. Hornaday wrote about the need to protectwildlife in North America. In 1907, a scientific study by M. C.Marsh showed how fish were hurt by industrial wastes releasedinto water sources. In 1962, Rachel Carson published SilentSpring, a book that discussed the dangers to the environmentfrom using the pesticide DDT.14Environmental Science
.The Roots of Environmental ScienceCarson and other people who wrote about the environmental effects of human activities helped make the public awareof environmental concerns. This public awareness led to thedesignation of April 22 as Earth Day. The first Earth Day in1970 sparked an environmental movement in the United States.As a result, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA),the Council on Environmental Quality, and many state andlocal environmental agencies were established. Today, manylaws protect our air, water, land, and wildlife resources.Activitiesdesigned to helpyou earn theEnvironmentalScience meritbadge can beBoy Scouts and the Environmentfound towardIn the early 1900s, as the conservation movement grew, twoseparate organizations for boys that focused on nature andthe environment were founded. In 1902, the Woodcraft Indianswas started in Connecticut by the naturalist Ernest ThompsonSeton to preserve the wilderness knowledge of AmericanIndians. As one of the foremost naturalists of his time, Setonspoke before the U.S. Congress in 1904 in support of legislation,which had been authored by William T. Hornaday, to protectmigratory birds.About the same time, Daniel Carter Beard, a former surveyor and engineer who became an author and illustrator,wrote a book titled The American Boy’s Handy Book. In 1905,Beard founded a club called Sons of Daniel Boone to teachboys about nature, conservation, and outdoorsmanship.On February 8, 1910, Seton and Beard merged their separateboys’ clubs into the Boy Scouts of America. Publisher WilliamD. Boyce founded this new organization. From its beginnings,the Boy Scouts of America had a strong foundation of woodcraft,nature study, and conservation. Many activities in Scoutingcome from activities of American Indians. Many of the principlesthat Scouts uphold come from the conservation ethics ofSeton and Beard. The BSA has taught more than 45 millionyoung environmentalists throughout its history. Currently,with more than 1.5 million active members, the BSA continuesto train American youth in principles of conservation andenvironmental science.the back ofthis pamphlet.Environmental Science15
.Principles of EcologyPrinciples of EcologyAlthough laws and agencies have been established tohelp protect and preserve nature, much more needsto be done. Before you can help protect nature, youmust understand how it works.Understanding EcologyImagine that you are standing on the bank of a quiet riverin Florida. Along the banks of this river you see a great blueheron, an alligator, a rat snake, and a raccoon. On a rock inthe
12 EnvironmEntal SciEncE The Roots of Environmental Science. The Roots of Environmental Science American Indians used forests and other environmental resources for centuries before European settlers arrived on the continent. In the Pacific Northwest, tribes used forest materials to make cedar houses, boats, and clothing.
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American Revolution Lapbook Cut out as one piece. You will first fold in the When Where side flap and then fold like an accordion. You will attach the back of the Turnaround square to the lapbook and the Valley Forge square will be the cover. Write in when the troops were at Valley Forge and where Valley Forge is located. Write in what hardships the Continental army faced and how things got .
