Ap Environmental Science Text

0 views

Skip to first unread message

Nikita Desjardins

unread,

Aug 3, 2024, 6:13:51 PM8/3/24

to riigenalo

Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:

Evaluate the diverse responses of peoples, groups, and cultures to environmental issues, themes and topics.
Use critical observation and analysis to predict outcomes associated with environmental modifications.
Demonstrate knowledge of the causes & consequences of climate change.
Apply quantitative skills to solve environmental science problems.
Demonstrate knowledge of environmental law and policy.
Design and critically evaluate experiments.
Interpret data in figures and graphs.

The book is missing many critical environmental subjects including agriculture, conservation, waste disposal, environmental justice, and environmental policy (among others). The book is also missing the human- environment connection. In addition,...read more

Environmental science evolves very fast. Many of the figures and data were very outdated, even considering the book is from 2018. For example, in the Human Demography chapter, the age structure diagrams for the United are from 2000, 2005, and 2010. In the alternative energy chapter, it still says "The main problem with the electric car is that it cannot go very far before it needs to be recharged, something that takes between three to six hours." This statement is not accurate today since fast chargers can fully charge a vehicle in under 30 minutes and many EVs now can go for hundreds of miles without recharging.

As I said above, many of the figures and data are outdated. However, I don't know if there is a way to avoid this issue in environmental science without citing data, which would be problematic as well. Environmental science evolves very quickly and this book would need constant updates.

Overall the book is well written and the topics covered are covered adequately for an introduction environmental science class. However, I would like to see the topics covered in the introductory chapter expanded upon and be individual chapters. For example Economics, environment, and public policy should be its own chapter. Economics and environmental science are deeply connected and the authors should go more in depth on this topic. Additionally, ecosystems and ecosystem services and biodiversity should be covered more in depth in a separate chapter. Finally, there should be chapters on soils, agriculture, environment and human health, and municipal and hazardous waste. Much of the environmental issues we are currently experiencing are related to these topics (i.e global pandemic, soil degradation and food shortages, and plastic pollution)

Overall the book is very accurate. I would like to see an updated version with more recent statistics. Some of the data is from 2015 and a lot has changed since then especially with renewable energy. Also, in the non-renewable energy chapter I would like to see some information on tar sands. Furthermore, for nuclear energy the authors only discuss light water reactors and the environmental issues with nuclear. This leads the reader to feel that there is no place for nuclear power in the worlds energy portfolio. There is a whole new generation of nuclear reactors and a recent surge in start up companies examining nuclear energy as a bridge energy source to help us meet our climate goals (i.e terra power). I think this information is critical for environmental science.

I think updates will be relatively easy and straightforward. However, as mentioned above much of the statistics and data is outdated and the authors need to keep current with new technology such as the next generation of nuclear reactors and advances in renewable energy.

Overall this is true except for the first chapter. This was called an introduction but many of the topics covered in this chapter could be stand alone chapters. Much of this information lays the critical framework for subsequent chapters in environmental science.

I have examined a myriad of environmental science textbooks and this book is consistent with the structure of an introductory environmental science textbook. Introduction, ecology (Which is included in the introduction and should be expanded as a chapter(s)), human population, energy, and pollution.

I found the text to be free of significant errors. In fact I liked the interface as too many of the environmental science textbooks on the market today are littered with figures, tables, graphs, and side bars that they become distractive.

The book is not culturally insensitive in anyway. In fact I encourage the authors to bring in more cultural examples related to environmental science. For example the hypothesized beginning of Covid-19 in the wet markets of China, high concentration of POPs in the Inuits, and human demography comparisons between developed and developing countries.

I enjoyed reading this textbook and if the authors expanded the subject matter to include additional topics nd the introduction I would consider using it in my introductory environmental science course.

Unfortunately, this book does not cover the more interesting (interdisciplinary, applied) environmental topics (environmental economics, environmental careers, legislation and legal issues, etc.). Another topic that I would like to see included...read more

See above; the book has become so hopelessly out of date that its accuracy was compromised. One advantage of an open source textbook (particularly the .pdf version) is the ability to link to outside sources of information that may be more current than the textbook (e.g., to the World Population Clock, NASA, NOAA, etc.). These are excellent. On the other hand, some of the links in this book are not very helpful (for example, linking to primitive websites like this one, with the intended video link completely dead, and some of the informational pages copyrighted in 1997: ).

In summary, my current textbook covers 25 chapters and this one contains 8. There is some consolidation going on there, but the open source book is missing quite a lot of topics, in addition to the fact that consolidated chapters are more difficult to navigate.

I do like some of the learning objectives (for the existing chapters), which are in some cases similar to those I have intentionally added to my current course because they were not emphasized in the textbook I am using (e.g., precautionary principle).

I did not notice instances of insensitivity, but the book is notably lacking in some of the most important key concepts that I emphasize in my class, such as environmental refugees, environmental justice, and environmental racism.

The exercise of reviewing this book has made me come to understand why environmental science textbooks are difficult to find in the open source format. This topic seems to be too time sensitive to lend itself to effective treatment by part-time authors who are not being paid to keep the book up to date. It has made me think differently about possibly trying to compile resources myself (instead of using any textbook at all) in the event that I was motivated enough to make the leap to a low or zero cost lecture section.

I reviewed this book with an eye to using it to make a course in Population, Environment, and Society stronger on the "Environment" component. I am sure that my students could benefit from some of the good descriptions of natural science facts and principles, but like some of the other reviewers, I found it heavy on the natural science side, and weak on social and economic issues. For instance, Chapter 4 on Energy did not connect back to stages of the Demographic Transition presented in chapter 3: there is no physical science reason for making such connections, but plenty of social science reasons. Chapter 5 on Alternative Energy was probably the best for population and environment courses: it covered upsides and downsides of various alternatives in ways that would help my students understand that while innovation has allowed population to grow far larger than previous generations thought possible, innovation also brings new challenges. I liked being able to appreciate some of the basic science behind conclusions like "biomass energy can and cannot be carbon neutral." A key tradeoff that the text made clear was biomass for fuel v. biomass for food.
A previous review said that the book handles human demography well, but because there was no attention to variation in the lag between the onset of mortality decline and fertility decline, I found the treatment wanting.

While, this book covers common topics suitable for environmental instruction of Introduction to Environmental Sciences, the comprehensiveness of the book would increase by adding chapters on: Agriculture, Economics, Biogeochemistry, as well as...read more

Core topics appear to be well related. As mentioned in the Comprehensiveness section, there are relevant discussion areas that should be covered, and some interjections, as mentioned for policy, that may be biased guidance.

Due to the prospective nature of addressing climate change, graphs often are predictive for a near future and in danger of inaccuracies. Similarly references on energy-use will become dated.
There are references to websites for additional resources, a Youtube link for a coal powerplant description, and an Excel spreadsheet for a list of terms that may be subject to third party accessibility.
Most of the basic science and theories are pretty definitive.