Chapter 1. Scientific American Environmental Science for a Changing World

Brett McMillan grew up in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains in rural Tennessee, and was interested in ecology and biodiversity well before he knew those concepts had a name. His first chance to teach came with a position as a biology lab teaching associate during his first year at Berea College in Kentucky. He continued teaching through graduate degrees in botany at the University of Florida and ecological science at Old Dominion University in Virginia and now works as an assistant professor of biology at McDaniel College in Maryland. Besides teaching outright, he has worked a variety of educational jobs, such as helping to develop curriculum for a university, coordinating the teaching of a class of 2000 students (who all met at the same time!), and developing laboratory manuals. He loves nature hikes, and his favorite classes are those that allow him to get outside and encourage students to see all the life that surrounds them. His research is broadly based in plant ecology and has often involved invasive species, but he is now moving into population genetics. Because he considers himself a teacher first, his research nearly always involves undergraduate students.

Besides his work as a professor, he is active in several professional societies, especially the Maryland Native Plant Society, of which he is a board member. Outside the realm of biology, Dr. McMillan enjoys vegetarian cooking, food history, linguistics and foreign languages, restoring old houses, and playing with his West Highland terriers.

Jamey Thompson is an Assistant Professor in the Biology, Chemistry, and Physics Department at Hudson Valley Community College in Troy, NY. He received his M.S. in Plant Ecology from New Mexico State University where he studied large scale changes to desert plant communities during droughts. He received his B.S. in Physics (Astronomy) from Purdue University where he was interested in planetary formation of the early solar system. He thinks that there are many subtle patterns that shape our environment (both on Earth and in the universe) and that this is a great time to study them all.

When he is not teaching, he works on his small farm raising bees, beef cattle, chickens, and a large garden. He also loves stargazing, reading science fiction, and visiting the ocean (any ocean will do) where he and his wife spend their time watching the tides and hunting for cool stones with their two daughters.

Our goal in preparing this study guide was to develop a student resource as innovative and effective as the text it supports. Many students have a critical misunderstanding — that to "study" is simply to re-read and rewrite. We intend to correct that misunderstanding with a guide that focuses, not on "studying," but on self-teaching.

The structure of the study guide reflects that goal. Within each activity, we focus on helping students "unpack" the concepts, processes, data, facts, and vocabulary needed to answer each guiding question. The specific approach we use has multiple benefits — it:

• Uses the storylines in the text to build context and to help students relate specific biological content to their own life experiences;
• Guides students through a self-teaching process that begins with identifying the material to be learned and ends with self-testing;
• Actively engages them with the material and helps them build a repertoire of tools that best suit their learning styles.

We suggest that you encourage students to work through the relevant portions of the study guide after each lecture and to devote a portion of their study time to reviewing previous material. If your class structure permits, you may wish to use the short-answer questions at the end of each chapter as small group exercises and/or as starting points for class discussion. Finally, we hope that the study guide enriches your students’ experience of environmental science as we know it — an exciting, dynamic discipline that informs all of our lives.

How to Get the Most from the Study Guide

Efficient studying can be broken down into steps:
(1) identify the material to be learned
(2) learn (teach yourself!) the material using all of the resources available
(3) self-test
(4) repeat as needed.

In this study guide, for step #1 the guiding questions from the chapter provide the framework for each section. For step #2, the specific activities and questions are designed to help you learn the material and answer each guiding question. The multiple-choice questions and short-answer questions, combined with the end-of-chapter questions in the textbook allow you to self-test and identify the areas of greatest/least understanding (step #3). Once you know where your strengths and weaknesses are, you should *return* to those sections and try to figure out what your misunderstandings are (step #4).

We encourage you to follow these tips as you work through the study guide:

• Read through the chapter and attend the class on that chapter before working through the study guide materials corresponding to it.
• Complete as many of the questions as possible without the textbook before consulting it.
• You are allowed as many attempts as needed in order to get the correct answer to a question: when you click the “Submit” button you’ll be told whether your answer was correct or not. Many questions will also provide feedback on why or why not.

This textbook and study guide were designed to make it clear why environmental science is relevant to your day-to-day life (most notably in the Why You Should Care segments in the study guide). We wish you the best of luck in your course!