Biology 1400: Introduction to Environmental Science
Introductory biology course that focuses on human interactions with the environment. Survey of contemporary environmental issues related to conservation and management of natural resources concurrent with increasing socioeconomic and human population demands. Topics such ecology, resource management, soil and food production, water and air pollution, solid and hazardous waste, global climate change and environmental economics will be emphasized.
Link to weekly reflections
Link to weekly reflections
Signature Assignment: Concept Map
Connection, Scientific, Process, & Integration Reflections
Process Reflection:
1. What were you hoping to understand more through this course?
I was interested to know more about how humans interact and affect the environment around us. I wanted to know the most about our air pollution and water pollution but I ended up learning a lot more than I thought.
2. Describe in detail what knowledge you gained throughout this semester and how that will/ will not change your opinions/ behavior and why.
How I look at everything I do in my daily life is different, I knew driving my car was bad but I now know what happens to produce exhaust and how it affects the air. How factory farming hurts not just the land around the farms but also the people. At my house, we had started to progress to being vegetarian and now I am fully devoted to make it a commitment. I also learned the importance of composing and my family and I have rented a green waste can for all our grass clippings. We also started up our own composting again.
3. How did your service inside and outside of class relate to issues discussed in this course?
The service that really impacted me was when we went to Catholic Community Services, you can really see that people need food and a place like that makes sure food is used to its maximum and not wasted. They have so many people to feed they can't afford to waste food.
My outside service with the environmental club helped me really realize how much time and devotion goes into rallying people behind a common goal as well as get the ball moving toward a goal, it's too bad we never even got to talk to Taylorsville City about idling. I hope to pick up the project this summer but we will have to see how long this pandemic continues.
1. What were you hoping to understand more through this course?
I was interested to know more about how humans interact and affect the environment around us. I wanted to know the most about our air pollution and water pollution but I ended up learning a lot more than I thought.
2. Describe in detail what knowledge you gained throughout this semester and how that will/ will not change your opinions/ behavior and why.
How I look at everything I do in my daily life is different, I knew driving my car was bad but I now know what happens to produce exhaust and how it affects the air. How factory farming hurts not just the land around the farms but also the people. At my house, we had started to progress to being vegetarian and now I am fully devoted to make it a commitment. I also learned the importance of composing and my family and I have rented a green waste can for all our grass clippings. We also started up our own composting again.
3. How did your service inside and outside of class relate to issues discussed in this course?
The service that really impacted me was when we went to Catholic Community Services, you can really see that people need food and a place like that makes sure food is used to its maximum and not wasted. They have so many people to feed they can't afford to waste food.
My outside service with the environmental club helped me really realize how much time and devotion goes into rallying people behind a common goal as well as get the ball moving toward a goal, it's too bad we never even got to talk to Taylorsville City about idling. I hope to pick up the project this summer but we will have to see how long this pandemic continues.
Scientific Reflection:
Describe the scientific method steps. How was the process that you used to complete your research and service projects similar to and different from the scientific method?
The Steps for the Scientific Method:
Describe the scientific method steps. How was the process that you used to complete your research and service projects similar to and different from the scientific method?
The Steps for the Scientific Method:
1. Make an observation
2. Do research 3. Form a hypothesis |
4. Test the prediction with an experiment
5. Conclusion 6. Share results |
For my service project I would some of the steps to the scientific method are really easy to point out, the first one for example, observation, I observed that Salt Lake Community College didn't have an environmental club and I wanted to change that since I am very interested in the idea of students doing more to help the school be green. When we had the SLCC recourse fair I talked to the guy at the SLCC recycling table and asked him why we didn't have one, this was the beginning of my research. This later led me to talk to Jessica Berryman who was a prominent figure in the Biology department. She said the reason we don't have one is because we need a student to lead it as well as four other students who are willing to be club members and a few have to hold positions in office. So my hypothesis was if we can get the needed student involvement we would be able to start hosting events as a club and start making a difference. The way we tested this was by making flyers promoting our meetings as well as going to classes to talk to students and bring their attention to it. I know we got some students interested because I supplied a QR code for them to scan and let us know if they wanted to be apart of our club emails. Unfortunately external forces arose and we never got to see the conclusion. I would like to hope and think that we would have gotten more students to come to meetings and be wanting and willing to take action and push our idea of an idle-free Taylorville through the city council. Now we can just try again when conditions change.
Outcome Reflection:
This class has helped me in understanding and developing three goals that SLCC put forth for all of their students. The goals I feel this class has helped achieve are developing quantitative literacy skills, strengthening my critical thinking and creativity, and building my knowledge and skills to be civically engaged.
Here is a link so you can go read more about those goals.
This class has helped me in understanding and developing three goals that SLCC put forth for all of their students. The goals I feel this class has helped achieve are developing quantitative literacy skills, strengthening my critical thinking and creativity, and building my knowledge and skills to be civically engaged.
Here is a link so you can go read more about those goals.
Integration Reflection:
While taking this course I was also taking three geography classes for my major in Environmental Studies. More than once we would talk about something in this class and it would pair up with what I was learning in physical geography, some examples are when we learned about how factory farming fish hurts the ocean environment around them and how if it is done sustainably it's more beneficial. Then in my geography class, we talked about the different layers of the ocean and the waves, but we also talked about ocean life and how important it is that this resource is managed sustainably and not overfished. On week 5 when we had to watch the documentary on overfishing, it talked a lot about the same stuff my geography book talked about like bottom trawling.
Then in our class, we talked about climate change and the evidence that it's real this was made up of stuff like El Nino and La Nina, the energy the Sun gives off, the tilt of the Earth, etc. and my geography talked about a lot of this as well so it was great to see side by side line up comparison on climate data. Our class, however, went into further detail about the evidence of climate change and the things that have aided in rapid change i.e. human influence making the change worse and happen rapidly.
In physical geography, the class focused a lot on the properties that make up Earth as well as what governs specific events. So where we talked about the different types of rocks that make up Earth (Igneous, Sedimentary and Metamorphic) as well as the rock cycle, I would say this loosely relates to our chapter on Chemistry of Life and Soil because soil is made up of all kinds of things including broken up rock as well as rock being made up of compressed soil minerals.
While taking this course I was also taking three geography classes for my major in Environmental Studies. More than once we would talk about something in this class and it would pair up with what I was learning in physical geography, some examples are when we learned about how factory farming fish hurts the ocean environment around them and how if it is done sustainably it's more beneficial. Then in my geography class, we talked about the different layers of the ocean and the waves, but we also talked about ocean life and how important it is that this resource is managed sustainably and not overfished. On week 5 when we had to watch the documentary on overfishing, it talked a lot about the same stuff my geography book talked about like bottom trawling.
Then in our class, we talked about climate change and the evidence that it's real this was made up of stuff like El Nino and La Nina, the energy the Sun gives off, the tilt of the Earth, etc. and my geography talked about a lot of this as well so it was great to see side by side line up comparison on climate data. Our class, however, went into further detail about the evidence of climate change and the things that have aided in rapid change i.e. human influence making the change worse and happen rapidly.
In physical geography, the class focused a lot on the properties that make up Earth as well as what governs specific events. So where we talked about the different types of rocks that make up Earth (Igneous, Sedimentary and Metamorphic) as well as the rock cycle, I would say this loosely relates to our chapter on Chemistry of Life and Soil because soil is made up of all kinds of things including broken up rock as well as rock being made up of compressed soil minerals.
Service Reflection:
For this class we had to do a service assignment by giving time to doing some form of service outside the classroom. I did mine by trying to start an Environmental Club at Salt Lake Community College you can click here to go and see the reflection on how it went.
For this class we had to do a service assignment by giving time to doing some form of service outside the classroom. I did mine by trying to start an Environmental Club at Salt Lake Community College you can click here to go and see the reflection on how it went.
Weekly Reflection:
I did a reflection for almost every week of the class on what we had done and what I learned from it, here is a link to those reflections.
I did a reflection for almost every week of the class on what we had done and what I learned from it, here is a link to those reflections.