Matter, Energy and Life

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Matter, Energy and Life
Building blocks of the Environment
To understand the environment, we need to know
how energy and matter behave in the environment
and in living things
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• ESRM 100 Field Trips
• A variety of different Field Trips Are Offered
• Each field trip is approximately 4 hours long
  including travel time
• -- meet in the C-10 Parking Lot behind
• Bloedel Hall for each Field Trip
• -- wear clothing that allows you to be
  outside-
• warm clothing and rain gear
• wear closed-toed shoes for all trips
• CHOOSE ONE FIELD TRIP TO ATTEND
• West Point Waste Treatment Plant and Discovery
  Park
• Cedar River Watershed - City of Seattle
• Wash. St. Dept. of Nat. Resources-Tiger Mtn.
• Carkeek Park Issaquah Fish Hatchery
• Union Bay Natural Area Washington Forest
  Ecosystems

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Washington State Dept. of Natural Resouces-Tiger
Mtn. Forest Resource Use and Conservation
max of 30 students
Saturday January 23rd (8am-noon) Thursday
February 11th (8am to noon)
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Issaquah Fish Hatchery Salmon stocking and
salmon habitat
max of 30 students
Saturday January 30th (1pm to 5 pm) Saturday
February 6th (1pm to 5pm)
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West Point Waste Treatment Facility and Discovery
Park Managing organic waste and utilizing it
max of 24 students
Saturday February 6th (830am to 1230pm)
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Carkeek Park Field Trip Building green and
ecosystem restoration
max of 30 students
Saturday January 23rd (1 to 5 pm)
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Western Washington Forest Ecosystems Understandi
ng natural and managed forests
Maximum of 24 students
Saturday January 30th (8am to noon)
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Cedar River Watershed -- City of Seattle Water
Supply
30 students max
Thursday February 11th (1230 pm to 430 pm)
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University of Washington Union Bay Natural
Area Restoration of the campus and building green
max of 24 students
Thursday February 18th (1230 pm to 430pm)
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Dates in Chronological Order January Saturday
23rd Wash. DNR Tiger Mtn. (8am to
noon) Saturday 23th - Carkeek Park (1 to 5
pm) Saturday 30th Washington Forests (8am to
noon) Saturday 30th - Issaquah Fish Hatchery
(1pm to 5pm) February Saturday 6th West
Point/Discovery Park (830-1230) Saturday 6th
Issaquah Fish Hatchery (1pm to 5pm) Thursday
11th- Wash. DNR Tiger Mtn. (8am to
noon) Thursday 11th - Cedar River Watershed
(1230 to 430 pm) Thursday 18th Union Bay
Nat. Area (1230pm to 430pm)
You will need to complete a one-page field trip
report answering questions related to each field
trip. This needs to be turned in (hardcopy) in
class within one week of the field trip you
attend. Field trip sign-up will be available
later today using the class website.
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Matter, Energy and Life
Building blocks of the Environment
To understand the environment, we need to know
how energy and matter behave in the environment
and in living things
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Matter
Anything that takes up space and has mass
Matter is made up of different elements
Atoms are the smallest particles that are
characteristic of an Element
a carbon atom
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Most matter can exist in three interchangeable
states solids, liquids, and gases
Elements are substances that cannot be broken
down into simpler substances by ordinary chemical
reactions The Periodic Table of Elements shows
all known elements organized by their properties
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Periodic Table of Elements
The table is organized by similarity in atomic
structure and characteristics
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A charged atom is an ion. Na
SODIUM
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Platinum
6
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Sulfur
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NEON
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URANIUM
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Conservation of Matter
Under ordinary circumstances, matter is neither
created nor destroyed. It is recycled endlessly.

• Where did the elements come from?

The phrase were all stardust is true!
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Just four elements carbon, hydrogen, oxygen,
and nitrogen - make up over 96 of the mass of
most organisms.
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Elements are joined by chemical bonds to form
molecules or compounds molecules also react to
form new compounds
Reactants Products
Chemical reactions, the breaking and forming of
molecular bonds, create the simple and
complex compounds and substances on which life
depends.
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Examples of molecules
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Water is a unique compound

• Water
• - is the medium in which all of lifes chemical
  reactions occur
• - is a good electrical conductor
• - has the highest surface tension of any common,
  natural liquid
• - is a liquid over a wide temperature range
• - expands when it crystallizes, unlike most
  substances

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Energy
The capacity to do work
heat, light, electricity, and chemical energy are
all types of energy
Energy can be Kinetic energy -- contained in
moving objects or Potential energy stored
energy (physical, chemical or nuclear)
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Potential Energy
Kinetic Energy
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Food has chemical energy calories
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High-quality energy is concentrated This is very
useful for doing work Examples Hot fire, high
voltage electricity, boiling water
Low-quality energy is diffused or dispersed This
is not very useful for doing work A lake contains
a lot of heat energy even if its cold, but that
heat energy is not very useful because its not
concentrated
Low-quality energy sources must be transformed to
high-quality sources to be very useful
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Two Fundamental Principles of Energy
Energy is conservedit is neither created nor
destroyed but may be transferred or transformed
(First law of thermodynamics) However, with
each successive transfer or transformation of
energy, there is less energy available to do work
because it is dissipated and disorder is
increased (Entropy increases ! (tendency of
all natural systems to move towards a state of
increasing disorder) - Second law of
thermodynamics).
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LIFE
Organisms are highly organized and require energy
to maintain that organizationthey must fight
entropy! With every activity a cell or an
organism performs, some energy is lost or
dissipated
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CO2
O2
Water
Sugar
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CO2
O2
Water
Sugar
Energy
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• Organism (species)
• Population
• Biological
• Community
• Ecosystem
• Biosphere (ecosphere)

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Food Web Cross-connected Food Chains
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(Cunningham Cunningham 2002)
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(Miller 2002)
Simplified Antarctic Food Web
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Organisms in an ecosystem may be identified by
how they obtain their food.
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(Miller 2002)
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(Miller 2002)
Cycle of Matter and Energy between the main
Structural Components of an Ecosystem
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Pyramid of Energy Flow
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(Miller 2002)
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Pyramid of Organism Numbers?
(Miller 2002)
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Pyramid of Organism Biomass?
(Miller 2002)
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Community-level Interactions
(Botkin Keller 2003)
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Key Points
1. Matter and Energy are the fundamental
building blocks of the environment and
organisms. 2. The periodic table of elements
shows all the known elements organized by atomic
structure and chemical properties. 3. Matter is
made of elements that can combine to form
molecules and compounds by chemical reactions. 4.
Matter and energy are conserved, but with each
successive reaction, energy is dissipated. 5.
Potential energy is stored energy Kinetic energy
is a release of energy by moving matter. 6. Life
requires matter and energyphotosynthesis
captures solar energy to create life respiration
releases that stored energy
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Key Points
7. An ecosystem is an environment interacting
with a biological community that is composed of
populations which are composed of individual
organisms. 8. Primary producers fix energy and
nutrients needed by consumers. 9. A food web (a
connection of food chains by some common
organism(s)) is a sequence of organisms in which
energy and materials pass from one trophic level
to another.
10. An organisms feeding position in an
ecosystem is its tropic level. 11.
Organisms in an ecosystem may be classified by
how they obtain their food, their consumer
level or their tropic level. 12. Generally the
transfer of energy in an ecosystem from one
tropic level to another is accompanied by roughly
a 90 loss.
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