Environmental Science Geology 1401 402

1
Environmental ScienceGeology 1401 402
404Instructor Don Thieme

• Introduction to Course and
• Scientific Method

2
Studying Science

• Read your textbook (Chapter 1 for Friday).
• Answer review questions at the end of each
• chapter.
• Review your textbook chapters after my lectures.
  
• Ask me questions.
• Review what you get wrong on quizzes and exams.

3
Applying Science

• read the newspaper
• surf the World Wide Web
• interview or volunteer with local activists,
  scientists, government officials
• Some Key Topics Energy, Water Quality, Floods,
  Wetlands, Global Warming, Air Pollution,
  Population Growth, Endangered Species

4
Testing and Grading

• Comprehensive Final Exam 20
• mostly Multiple Choice/TF
• but also 5-10 short answer and 1-2 essays
• 3 other Exams (multiple choice) 45
• Quizzes (6-7) as needed 10
• Homework assignments (4) 10
• Term Paper 15

5
Science

• "scientia" means knowledge in Latin
• science is a worldview or body of shared
  assumptions
• science is a community or "culture" within
  society as a whole
• science is a method for testing the truth or
  falsehood of statements

6
Scientific Worldview

• the world is knowable (rationalism)
• the present is the key to the past
  (uniformitarianism)
• choose the simplest possible explanation
  (parsimony)
• theories change to accomodate new data
  (contingency)

7
Scientific Community

• University departments ("natural" vs. "social"
  science)
• Government agencies ("conservation" vs.
  "preservation")
• Environmentalists (Sierra Club, Nature
  Conservancy, Audobon Society, etc... )
• International Panels (UN, IPCC, etc.)

8
Scientific Method

• make observations
• formulate a hypothesis
• test the hypothesis with new observations
• draw conclusions ("theory"?)

9
Phenomena

• what we observe of the world around us
• change with the state of our technology
  (microscopes, telescopes, remote sensing
  platforms,....)
• as scientists, we try first to report our
  original observations ("sense data") as opposed
  to our interpretations or those of other workers

10
Metric System (cgs units)
k 1000 kilometer, kilogram c 100th
10-2 centimeter, cc, centigram m 1000th
10-3 millimeter, milligram, millisecond mm
1,000,000th micrometer, microsecond
10-6 nm 10-9 nannometer, nannosecond
11
Physical Scale
Earth's diameter 6,378 km 6,738,000 m
6.4 x 103 km 6.4 x 106 m
Earth's average density 5.5 g/cm3 5.5 g cm-3
5500 kg m-3
Elemental Lead (Pb) specific gravity 11 g cm-3
Quartz (SiO2) specific gravity 2.79 g cm-3
Water (H2O) specific gravity 1 g cm-3
Air is 0-4 percent water vapor (H2O).
12
Laboratory Experiments

• control population to insure reproducibility
• "double-blind" design to remove observer bias
• calibration of instruments with standards
• standardization of measurement techniques
  (significant digits)
• statistical comparison and interpretation of
  results

13
Statistics

• Measures of Central Tendency
• Mean Sum of observations/ n
• Median 50th percentile
  (1/2 above, 1/2 below)
• Mode Most common observation

14
Statistics

• Measures of Dispersion
• Variance sum of squared deviations about the
  mean /n
• Standard error square root of the variance

15
Statistics

• Correlation
• measure of the degree to which measurements
  covary
• cannot infer causality from correlation

r2 1
16
Scientific Theories

• "theoria" means to look in Greek
• the best description or explanation available for
  a given phenomenon
• supported by an overwhelming body of data and
  experience
• generally accepted by the scientific community

17
Environmental Science

• interdisciplinary
• physical constraints on living organisms
• impacts of organisms on the physical world
• must transcend dichotomy between "pure" and
  "applied" science
• must transcend dichotomy between "natural" and
  "social" science