| NSES Content Standard F
Science in Personal and Social Perspectives: Environmental quality Grades 9-12, page 198 Many factors influence environmental quality. Factors that students
might investigate include population growth, resource use, population distribution,
overconsumption, the capacity of technology to solve problems, poverty,
the role of economic, political, and religious views, and different ways
humans view the earth.
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Benchmark 4B The Physical Setting: The
Earth
Grades 6-8, page 69
The benefits of the earth's resources--such as fresh water, air, soil,
and trees--can be reduced by using them wastefully or by deliberately or
inadvertently destroying them. The atmosphere and the oceans have a limited
capacity to absorb wastes and recycle materials naturally. Cleaning up
polluted air, water, or soil or restoring depleted soil, forests, or fishing
grounds can be very difficult and costly.
Benchmark 7C Human Society: Social Change
Grades 9-12, page 163
The size and rate of growth of the human population in any location
is affected by economic, political, religious, technological, and environmental
factors. Some of these factors, in turn, are influenced by the size and
rate of growth of the population.
Benchmark 7G Human Society: Global Interdependence
Grades 6-8, page 177
The global environment is affected by national policies and practices
relating to energy use, waste disposal, ecological management, manufacturing,
and population.
Benchmark 8A The Designed World: Agriculture
Grades 6-8, page 186
In agriculture, as in all technologies, there are always trade-offs
to be made. Getting food from many different places makes people less dependent
on weather in any one place, yet more dependent on transportation and communication
among far-flung markets. Specializing in one crop may risk disaster if
changes in weather or increases in pest populations wipe out that crop.
Also, the soil may be exhausted of some nutrients, which can be replenished
by rotating the right crops.
Benchmark 8B The Designed World: Materials
and Manufacturing
Grades 6-8, page 190
Modern technology reduces manufacturing costs, produces more uniform
products, and creates new synthetic materials that can help reduce the
depletion of some natural resources.
Benchmark 8B The Designed World: Materials
and Manufacturing
Grades 9-12, page 191
Waste management includes considerations of quantity, safety, degradability,
and cost. It requires social and technological innovations, because waste-disposal
problems are political and economic as well as technical.
Benchmark 8C The Designed World: Energy
Sources and Use
Grades 6-8, page 194
Different ways of obtaining, transforming, and distributing energy
have different environmental consequences.
Benchmark 8C The Designed World: Energy
Sources and Use
Grades 9-12, page 195
Decisions to slow the depletion of energy sources through efficient
technology can be made at many levels, from personal to national, and they
always involve trade-offs of economic costs and social values.