Social Studies Curriculum

Area Studies Electives

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Adopted January 1999

Environmental Studies

Course Description:

Environmental Studies emphasizes how the diverse peoples and cultures of the world affect the land on which they live.  Students will examine the historical context of how local geography influenced the decisions that a people made.  Then, as industrialization became widespread, how those decisions affected the world's geography and environment.  The interrelationships existing between economic development and the environment will also be explored.

The course title and description have been approved by the Anchorage School Board.  This course outline is meant to serve as an example of one possibility for organizing this class.  It does not represent the only way the course may be organized.  Each course outline has been written by a different teacher so there will be differences in the approach used from one course to another.

Course Goals:

Through this course students will:

• Understand and examine issues relating to the earth’s environment.
• Understand the relationship between local and global environmental concerns.
• Understand the relationship between a nation’s environmental policies and their level of economic development.
• Assess the role of governmental and non-governmental organizations in dealing with environmental problems.
• Develop the critical thinking skills necessary to evaluate scientific data and various positions on environmental questions.
• To examine students’ personal actions as they relate to the environment and encourage the development of environmentally responsible citizens.
  

Course Objectives:

Students will:

• Identify major environmental issues.
• Categorize an environmental issue as global, local, or both.
• List the primary causes and results of environmental problems.
• Identify the parties involved in an environmental dispute.
• Compare and contrast the environmental problems and policies of developing and industrialized nations.
• Analyze scientific data cited as evidence of a particular environmental problem for accuracy and bias.
• Identify possible existing and create original solutions to environmental issues.
• Examine the role of non governmental organizations (NGO’s) in bringing public attention to environmental issues and encouraging governments to act.
• Evaluate the effectiveness of environmental policy and regulation.

Course Outline:

1. Introduction to Environmental Studies
   1. Identify environmental issues and categorize the impact as local, global, or both.
   2. Terminology
      1. Scarcity.
      2. Sustainable development
      3. Renewable and nonrenewable resources
   3. Environmental views
      1. Preservation
      2. Conservation
      3. Market environmentalism
   4. Value systems
      1. Aboriginal, Native American
      2. Industrialized nations
      3. Developing nations
2. Land issues
   1. Identify the environmental issues associated with municipal solid waste (M.S.W.) disposal
      1. Landfills
      2. Incineration, waste-to-energy plants
      3. Marine dumping
      4. Reduce, reuse, and recycle
      5. Identify ways they can decrease the amount of M.S.W. generated in their own communities, homes.
   2. Pollution
      1. Causes and effects
      2. Hazardous waste
      3. Superfund
   3. Mining
   4. Deforestation
      1. Causes and results
      2. Identify areas of the world where the threat of deforestation is greatest.
      3. Desertification and its relationship to deforestation.
      4. Possible solutions to the problem of deforestation.
   5. Wildlife management
      1. Question of the intrinsic value of wilderness
      2. Importance of biodiversity
      3. Major issues concerning sport and subsistence hunting.
      4. Conservation and preservation efforts in national parks
      5. Legislation such as the Endangered Species Act
      6. Specific wildlife management attempts such as the state’s wolf control program or Canada Goose problem in Anchorage.
   6. Recreational trails
      1. Problems of multiple use trails
      2. Methods of decreasing human impact on recreational trails
3. Water issues
   1. Drinking water
      1. Sources
      2. Direct and indirect uses of water
      3. Personal water conservation methods
   2. Pollution
      1. Major causes of residential and industrial water pollution
      2. Legislation such as the Clean Water Act in controlling water pollution
   3. Issues surrounding wetland, marine, and waterway habitat protection
      1. Habitat protection efforts such as on the Kenai River.
      2. Advantages and disadvantages of resource allocation programs such as the use of Individual Fishing Quotas (I.F.Q.’s) to manage commercial fisheries
4. Air/Atmosphere issues
   1. Suspended particulate matter (SPM)
      1. Causes and results
      2. Examination of SPMs between indoor/outdoor, urban/rural, industrialized/developing nations
   2. Global warming
      1. Arguments for/against the possible existence of, the possible extent of, and the possible acceleration of global warming by human action.
      2. The greenhouse gasses, their relative contributions to global warming, and the main sources of each.
      3. The amount and type of air pollutants produced in a particular nation to that nation’s level of economic development.
      4. Possible connections between deforestation and global warming.
   3. The controversy over possible ozone depletion in the atmosphere
   4. The causes and effects of acid rain
   5. Solutions
      1. Air pollution legislation such as the Clean Air Act.
      2. Evaluate the effectiveness of various air pollution reduction measures such as public transportation, automobile emissions regulations, gasoline additives, etc.
      3. Using emission rights as a commodity.
      4. Ways of reducing personal contributions to air pollution.
5. Energy issues
   1. Fossil fuels
      1. Types of fossil fuels
      2. Problems associated with dependence on fossil fuels as the major source of energy
   2. Aggregate and per capita energy consumption rates of industrialized and developing nations
   3. Renewable energy sources and the costs/benefits associated with each
   4. Ways of reducing personal energy consumption
6. Population issues
   1. Factors that contribute to population growth
   2. Environmental impact of population growth
   3. Differentiate between population growth and population growth rates
   4. The effects of the industrial revolution on population growth rates
   5. Compare and contrast the population growth rates of developing and industrialized nations.
   6. Options, costs and benefits of controlling population growth rates
7. Governmental issues
   1. How do governments deal with environmental issues within their borders and what is their effectiveness. How does the United States address these issues?
   2. Environmental policies in developing and industrialized nations
   3. Problems that governments have in dealing with regional and global environmental issues that transcend political boundaries.
   4. Governmental organizations such as the United Nations and the World Bank and their effectiveness in dealing with environmental issues.
   5. The role that non governmental organizations play in bringing national and international attention to some environmental issues.
   6. Possible social and economic discrimination that can result because of environmental regulation.
   7. How students can influence leaders in their communities and participate in the formation of environmental policies
      

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