What is Our Environment?

To most people, the first thing that they think of when they hear the term environment is their surroundings. However, your environment is much more than that! Just what are your surroundings, anyway? Do you consider your surroundings the region within a certain distance from your body? How about the room you are in? What about the rest of the building? How about the community? Is the county and state you are in part of your surroundings? How about your country? What about your continent? As you can see, using surroundings as the basis for defining the environment depends on the scale that you intend. To really understand what the environment is, we need a definition that does not rely on scale, and that encompasses much more than just surroundings. To begin with, it helps to consider our surroundings (or the universe, for that matter) as consisting of three distinct compartments, or worlds. The three worlds are the physical world, the living world, and the human world. Lets look at each of these in detail: The Physical World The physical world consists of two things: the nonliving things around us and the rules and processes that govern them. For instance, rocks, mountains, lakes, clouds, sunlight, the atmosphere these are nonliving things. All of these things are acted upon by physical laws and processes, such as gravity, temperature, and evaporation.

Physical World (Land, Air, Water; Processes)

The Living World The living world consist of all the living things around us and the rules and processes that govern them. Plants, bacteria, animals, and mushrooms are all examples of living things. Living things are involved in a myriad of living processes, such as cellular respiration, photosynthesis, eating, reproducing, and generally going about their business.

Living World (Life and Living Processes)

The Human World Although we humans are living organisms, and as such are part of the living world, we are very different from every other living thing. The human world comprises such things as ideas, customs, religion, science, history, art, music these and many other things that make us human.

Human World (Ideas, Customs, History, etc.)

The Environment: Bringing It All Together Consider this: does a person only deal with aspects of the human world, and exist completely separate from the physical or living world? Your response should have been along the lines of Of course not! After all, are you breathing? Do you eat? This brings up the single most important idea that defines the environment:

Interaction!
The environment is all about interactions the interactions between the physical world, the living world, and the human world.

Physical World (Land, Air, Water; Processes)

Human World (Ideas, Customs, History, etc.)

Living World (Life and Living Processes)

Everything about our environment has to do with the interactions between the physical, living, and human worlds. These interactions are evident in everything that you do, every decision that you make, 24/7/365. Most people probably dont give much thought to these interactions. However, there is nothing mysterious about them, and you can probably list a dozen without too much trouble. Environmental Science Read the activity about science. You should now be aware that science is what humans do in an attempt to explain the world around them. Science seeks to answer questions like How? What? Why? This is accomplished through observation, measurement, and experimentation. So now the scope of environmental science should be clear: the observations, measurements, and experiments that help humans understand the components, processes, and interactions between the physical, living, and human worlds.