Biology is designed for multi-semester biology courses for science majors. It is grounded on an evolutionary basis and includes exciting features that highlight careers in the biological sciences and everyday applications of the concepts at hand. To meet the needs of today’s instructors and students, some content has been strategically condensed while maintaining the overall scope and coverage of traditional texts for this course. Instructors can customize the book, adapting it to the approach that works best in their classroom. Biology also includes an innovative art program that incorporates critical thinking and clicker questions to help students understand—and apply—key concepts.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:Discuss the biogeochemical cycles of water, carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfurExplain how human activities have impacted these cycles and the potential consequences for Earth

Students act as mining engineers and simulate ore mining production by using chocolate chip cookies. They focus on the cost-benefit analysis of the chocolate ore production throughout the simulation, which helps them understand the cost of production. As students “mine” with tools such as paperclips and toothpicks, they keep records of their costs—land (cookie), equipment used, cookie size before and after production, and time spent. While the goal is to make as much profit as possible, other costs and goals are taken into consideration—as in real-world mining engineering. For example, mining engineers also consider the resulting amount of destruction to the lithosphere when deciding the best method to obtain ore. Thus, a line item for land reclamation cost is included from the beginning. A provided worksheet serves as a profit and loss statement.

Students are presented with examples of the types of problems that environmental engineers solve, specifically focusing on air and land quality issues. Air quality topics include air pollution sources, results of poor air quality including global warming, acid rain and air pollution, as well as ways to reduce air pollution. Land quality topics include the differences between renewable and non-renewable resources, the results of non-renewable resource misuse and ways to reduce land pollution. (Water quality is introduced in a later lesson in a separate presentation, as it is the focal point of this unit curriculum.)

Students will brainstorm ways that they use and waste natural resources. Also, they will respond to some facts about population growth and how people use petroleum. Lastly, students will consider the different ways that engineers interact with and use our natural resources.

In this lesson, students will identify the Earth's natural resources and classify them as renewable or non-renewable. They will simulate the distribution of resources and discuss the fairness and effectiveness of the distribution. Students will identify ways that they use and waste natural resources, and they will explore ways that engineers interact with natural resources.

A quantitative illustration of how non-renewable resources are depleted while renewable resources continue to provide energy. Students remove beads (units of energy) from a bag (representing a country). A certain number of beads are removed from the bag each "year." At some point, no non-renewable beads remain. Student groups have different ratios of renewable and non-renewable energy beads. A comparison of the remaining beads and time when they ran out of energy shows the value of utilizing a greater proportion of renewable resources as a sustainable energy resources.

A large part of engineering involves presenting products, concepts, and proposals to others in order to gain approval, funding, contracts, etc. The purpose of this activity is to fine-tune students' presentation skills while allowing them to independently investigate one type of power production to meet the needs of their region of choice. Students also learn problem solving skills in examining the advantages and disadvantages of particular methods of power generation.