Module INTRODUCTION TO

1 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE

Expect

After completion of this module, the students are expected to:

a. define the following terms:
 Environmental science
 Environment
 Environmental education
 Science
 Resources;
b. discuss the goals of environmental science;
c. describe the foundation of sustainable society and explain the role of environmental science in
attaining the objective of the society; and
d. explain why resource management and resource technology are considered significant features in
environmental studies.

OVERVIEW
Our environment is fascinating however it is threatened by climate change, biodiversity loss,
resource depletion, and animal extinction. This is where environmental science enters the picture, but
what is environmental science? You will find out about this in this module. Also, you will be exploring
the definition and goals of environmental science, sustainable society, resources management and
environmental technology.

| Engage
Environmental science studies all aspects of the environment in an interdisciplinary way. Identify the
different field of science that are incorporated in environmental science by filling up this semantic web
below

ENVIRONMENTAL
SCIENCE

| Explore
1.1|DEFINITION OF TERMS

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE 1
  Environmental Science
Environmental science is an interdisciplinary academic field that draws on ecology, geology,
meteorology, biology, chemistry, engineering, and physics to study environmental problems and
human impacts on the environment. Environmental science is a quantitative discipline with both
applied and theoretical aspects and has been influential in informing the policies of governments
around the world.

 Environment
The complex of physical, chemical, and biotic factors that act upon an organism or an ecological
community and ultimately determine its form and survival.

 Environmental Education
Environmental Education is a holistic, lifelong learning process directed at creating responsible
citizens who explore and identify environmental issues, engage in problem solving, and take action
effectively to improve the environment.

 Science
Science is any system of knowledge that is concerned with the physical world and its phenomena
and that entails unbiased observations and systematic experimentation. In general, a science
involves a pursuit of knowledge covering general truths or the operations of fundamental laws.

 Resources
Resources are anything that has utility and adds value to your life. Air, water, food, plants, animals,
minerals, metals, and everything else that exists in nature and has utility to mankind is a ‘resource’.

1.2|GOALS OF ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE

1. To develop sustainable world-a world in which the supply of food, ater, building materials, clean air,
and other resources can sustain human population to continue to exist indefinitely with a high standard of
living and health.

2. To study environmental problems and issues; priorities regarding acceptable environmental

preservation of natural species and habitats.

1.3| SUSTAINABLE SOCIETY

A sustainable society is one that ensures the health and vitality of human life and culture’s and of
nature’s capital for present and future generations. Such a society acts to stop the activities that serve to
destroy human life and culture and nature’s capital and to encourage those activities that serve to
conserve what exists, restore what has been damaged and prevent human being from future dire
consequences.

Sustainable societies are defined as towns and cities that have taken steps to remain healthy over
the long term. Sustainable societies have a strong sense of place. They have a vision that is embraced and
actively promoted by all of the key sectors of society, including businesses, disadvantaged groups,
environmentalists, civic associations, government agencies, and religious organizations. They are places
that build on their assets and dare to be innovative. These communities value healthy ecosystems, use
resources efficiently and actively seek to retain and enhance a locally based economy. Sustainable
development concerns everybody in a society.

Objectives of Sustainable Society

Some important characteristics and objectives of a sustainable society can be scientifically
narrated in the following manner such as:

ECONOMIC GOALS
1. Economical goals: Through this goal we need to make some effort like:
 Creation of jobs that enhance the nature of work;
 Equitable income distribution within and among the countries;
 Economic stabilization and system equilibrium;

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE 2
  Technology exchange, not simply technology transfer, emphasizing technologies that
emulate rather than destroy nature;
 Economic self-sufficiency, at community, national and international level; and
 Sufficiency, rather than efficiency, since high levels of consumption are generally
incompatible with the conservation and preservation of nature’s capital.

SOCIAL AND CULTURAL GOALS

2. Social and Cultural goals include:

 Equity and justice, emphasizing needs over wants, especially in the more industrialized
countries;
 Full status for all regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, class, sexual orientation or age;
 Maintenance of cultural diversity, including respect and support for indigenous peoples;
 Strengthened communities through participation of individuals and social groups in the
conduct of their own affairs;
 Revitalization of sustainable rural communities through the development of
environmentally sensitive and environmentally sensitive and economically profitable
agriculture, family farming and appropriate value-added environmentally sound industrial
development; and
 Revitalization of communities within urban settings.

POLITICAL GOALS
3. Political Goals include:
 Political security, including community participation in defining and solving problems;
 Strategic security, including the community’s ability to defend itself against external
threats, whether economic or political; and
 Environmental balance between the community’s population and the demands made upon
it relative to economic endowment and performance, including its natural capital and its
level of technology. This recognizes the right to protect itself from environmental assaults
generated outside the community, such as befouled air from a neighbor that destroys its
forests. This right carries with it the responsibility to be protective of the rights of other
communities by not transporting its wastes to them.

ECOLOGICAL GOALS

4. Ecological goals:
 Ecological stability planning with emphasis on waste reduction rather than waste
management and on renewable and recyclable supplies of resources, taking account of
resource and sink constraints, necessitating;
 Particular attention to unintended socioeconomic, cultural and ecological consequences of
technology, management and regulation;
 Zero toxins as a more suitable goal for production process;
 Balancing ecological debt within and among countries;
 Maintaining biodiversity; and
 Population stabilization.

Role of Environmental Science in Attaining the Objectives of the Society

Environmental science is more concerned with discovering ways to live more sustainably. This
means utilizing present resources in a manner that conserves their supplies for the future.

Environmental sustainability doesn’t have to outlaw living luxuriously, but it advocates for
creating awareness about the consumption of resources and minimizing unnecessary waste. This includes
minimizing household energy consumption, using disposals to dispose of waste, eating locally, recycling
more, growing your own food, drinking from the tap, conserving household water, and driving your car
less.

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 Moreover, If the objective of society is to enable its members to live healthy, happy, and
productive lives, then environmental science plays a very large role in that process. By studying the
environment, scientists understand the effects that humans are having on the world around them, and can
better help them deal with any adverse effects, like air polluting the air they breathe, or acid rain polluting
the ground in which they grow their crops. Environmental science helps develop ways to counteract these
effects and implements these ways so that humans can lead happy, healthy, and productive lives in
society, fulfilling the social objectives.

1.4| RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AND RESOURCE TECHNOLOGY

Resource management and resource technology are considered significant features in

environmental studies.

Environmental resource management is the management of the interaction and impact of

human societies on the environment. Environmental resource management aims to ensure that ecosystem
services are protected and maintained for future human generations.

Environmental resource management tries to identify factors affected by

conflicts that rise between meeting needs and protecting resources. The
resources which are included:
1. Biotic resources (floral and fauna)
2. Abiotic resources (land, water, air, etc.)

The ecological balance and ecosystem stability are duly maintained by

the nature itself but the emergence of modern industrial era has disturbed the
ecological balance through heavy industrialization, technological revolution,
faster growth of means of transportation, rapacious exploitation of resources,
unplanned urbanization etc. The process, environmental management is related
to the rational adjustment of man with nature involving judicious exploitation
and utilization of natural resources without disturbing the ecosystem balance
and ecosystem equilibrium. If the natural resources are overexploited, it will
affect socio-economic development of a nation. Thus, environmental management must take into
consideration the ecological principles and socioeconomic needs of the society. Environmental
management is very wide in scope and includes all the technical, economical and other aspects of
environment.

Environmental resource management can be viewed from a variety of perspectives.

 It involves the management of all components of the biophysical environment, both living (biotic)
and non-living (abiotic), and the relationships among all living species and their habitats.
 The environment also involves the relationships of the human environment, such as the social,
cultural and economic environment, with the biophysical environment.

The essential aspects of environmental resource management are ethical,

economical, social, and technological. These underlie principles and help make
decisions.

The concept of environmental determinism, probabilism and possibilism are

significant in the concept of environmental resource management.

Environmental technology, also known as ‘green’ or ‘clean’ technology,

refers to the application of environmental sciences in the development of new
technologies which aim to conserve, monitor or reduce the harm humans regularly
cause the environment while consuming its resources. Sustainable development sits
at the core of environmental technology - adopted practices that fuel economic
development by avoiding the depletion of natural resources and further polluting.

Put simply, environmental technologies aim to protect the environment. They offer ways of
consuming which are less polluting or do so in a sustainable manner, and often provide new ways to
avoid depletion of natural resources altogether. Prominent examples include solar and wind energy, water
desalination (the removal of salt or other minerals from saline water), electric vehicles, and pyrolysis
(thermochemical decomposition of organic material).

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE 4
THE NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION ACTION PLAN FOR
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT ( 2005-2014)
The years 2005 to 2014 have been declared as the United Nations Decade of Education for
Sustainable Development (UNDESD).

An Overview
OVERCOMING Poverty, Gender Equality, Health Promotion and , environmental Protection
and Conservation, Rural Transformation, Human Rights, Intercultural Understanding and Peace,
Sustainable Production and Consumption, Cultural Diversity and Information and
Communication Technologies-these are the key themes in Education for Sustainable
Development (under the UNESCO Framework for a Draft Implementation Scheme of the
UNDESD).

The Philippine Response

Preparations for the declaration have been underway in the Philippines since 2003 as
national government agencies, the civil society and the business sector gathered to draft a
workable action plan to usher in the UNDESD.

Through the Environmental Education and Information Division of the Environmental

Bureau (EMB) of the Department of Environmental and Natural Resources, which likewise
chairs the Sub-committee of Information and Education of the Philippine Council of Sustainable
Development, a multisectoral workshop was held in November 2003 to begin the updating of
the National Environmental Education Action Plan ( NEEAP), which serve das the framework
for environmental education in the country from 1992-2002. This consultative workshop sought
to review and assess initiatives for the NEEAP 1992-2002, based on sectoral perspective in basic
education; technical and vocational education; and tertiary and non-formal education ( including
civil society, local governments, media, business and youth).Implementation gaps and
recommendations for actions were ) and the updated NEEAP integrated into identified in the
consultative workshop ( and the later smaller consultations that followed) and integrated into the
updated NEEAP for Sustainable Development for 2005-2014, coinciding with the UNDESD.

Key Elements of Sustainable Development under the Enhanced Philippine Agenda 21 that
the NEEAP for Sustainable Development for 2005-2014 must support
 Poverty Reduction
 Social Equity
 Empowerment of Good Governance
 Peace and Solidarity
 Ecological Integrity

Education for Sustainability

The aim is to pursue education to foster the transition to a sustainable society. As a
process, education for sustainable development is used to:
 Create awareness of sustainable issues
 Enhance knowledge and understanding skills
 Influence values and attitudes
 Encourage more responsible behaviour
 Promote learning that leads to action.

The Vision
The plan envisions an environmentally literate and proactive citizeny imbued ith a sense
of responsibility to care, protect, and enhance environmental quality that is conducive to their
well-being supportive of the nation’s economic development and unified in its pursuit of peace,
social justice and equity in the use of natural resources.

The Mission
1. To improve the institutional systems, making them more relevant towards the delivery of
environmental education to all segments of society.

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE 5
 2. To mobilize resources and encourage more private/public investments and partnerships in
supporting programs for environmental education.
3. To establish a critical mass of committed environmental educators and practitioners who
will spearhead the environmental education movement.
4. To promote an environmental ethic which will instil the right values and attitudes as
away of life among the Filpinos.

| Evaluation
1. In your own words, give the meaning of the following terms:

A. Environmental science
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B. Environment
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C. Environmental Education
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D. Science
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E. Resources
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2. Name one of the key differences between environmental science and natural science.
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3. Describe the foundation of a sustainable society and explain the role of environmental science in
attaining the objective of the society.
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________

4. Explain why resources management and resources technology are considered significant features
in environmental studies.

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE 6
 ______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
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5. What are the goals of environmental science? Give your insights for each goal.
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6. Explain the six key elements of sustainable development under Philippine Agenda
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REFERENCES
Book/ Journal
Lee, Sergio J. & Anes, Myrna L.( 2010). Environmental Science. 2nd Edition. C & E Publishing, Inc.
Siddiqui, A.H. (2018). A Sustainable Society: Its Meaning and Objectives. International Journal of
Research and Scientific Innovation (IJRSI), 5(1), 128-131.

On-line:
[Link] Retrieved on July 30, 2020.
[Link] Retrieved
on July 30, 2020.
[Link] Retrieved on July 30, 2020.
[Link]
Retrieved on July 30, 2020.
[Link]
[Link]
environmental-technology/3264. Retrieved on August 4, 2020.
[Link]
environmental-technology/. Retrieved on August 4, 2020.

PHOTO CREDITS

All images used were retrieved from Google Images.

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