Curiosity

Navigating the site:

Analysis

Argument

Art

Articles

Autonomy

Bibliography

Biodiversity

Briefings

Capacity

Concepts

CORE acronym

Courses

Ecology

Eco-design

Education

Facts

Inquiry

Methods

New

Office

Photos

Presentations

Research

Reviews

Science

Site Map

Sources

Technology time-line

Tragedy

Vita

Vocabulary

WEAL acronym

Writing

World view

Z-A contents of this site

return to top of the page

Inquiry, to query, ask, question and thus to investigate in detail.

trees

Ecology is a wide-ranging & synthetic inquiry as to how the world functions who we are and how we all got here; what are we doing and how does that affect the function of the life of the planet.

The inquiry can be divided into ten related, sequential, and systematically crucial parts.

Form | function | energy | decision trees | many concurrent scales | nutrient flow | functionality | sources | performance | patterns | books | laws

ivyline

Place and process are both partners in the game of life.

trees

For the human household –the earth has rules: globe

globeTopographical rules: [laws of place]

nourish the land or perish
changes in altitude are like changes in latitude
water inheres in the land, together they are inseparable

ballsRules of ecology: [laws of process]

You can never do merely one thing
Everything has to go somewhere
Our impact is related to our affluence times our numbers

hotLaws of Thermodynamics: [rules of the game]

You can't win
You are bound to lose
You can't get out of the game


:


Earth ethics

  Earth

 human household

 stewardship

 caretaker values

Earth Features of the earth forming our human household.

form1

tesseract

Analysis by analogy

The world is our home?

Water

 Energy

 Air

 Land

 

Water, energy, air, and land are the four components of our home that are an acronym–WEAL– that stands for the functional contributions found in any place we investigate.

Functional integrity:

Solar radiation
drives the water cycle.
   
water tree cow runner
         
water enables
vegetation
growth
animals
humans
recycle
A never-ending circuit of renewal and return.

Space and time:

Watershed concept

Scale
Macro | Meso | Micro
levels
sizes
runner earth
terms
nanoscale
Human macro-scale

 

Human movement across the continents began as long as 170,000 years ago with a dispersal about Africa and three subsequent passages out of Africa 70 to 60 thousand and also 50 to 40 thousand years ago.

 

Macro

Meso

Mesocosms

Micro

microscale

For proteins to function properly they must fold in precise ways.

earth

How a molecule and macro-molecular protein fold determines their functionality; proteins make glucose.

Note the water molecule released by the amino acids forming a peptide.

Performance

earth

A molecule of glucose, life's fuel.

Nutrient Nitrogen Sulfur
atom
n
n
cycles
N
su cycel
air
abundant but unavailable
trace amounts shape proteins

nitrogen accumulation

Sufficient energy for nutrient flow through biological systems to sustain functional integrity.
  sulfur niche  
   
 

Sulfur cycle is one of several essential trace elements for life

Niche

 

 

 

 

Biome a natural area on earth of common living communities
graf
location of planetary plant and animal associations percentage of the surface area of each association

Comparative productivity

graf

trees

ecology, defined | ecological integrity | ecosystems | ecological design | weal | index | thought

What images are in the patterns we observe?

real -- imposed on our sensory receptors by stimuli from our surroundings?

ideal -- imposed by apprehension, comprehension

more on the artificiality of real versus ideal.

 


books

Mary Austin

Gregory Bateson

Rachel Carson

Alfred Crosby

Charles Darwin

Anne and Paul Ehrlich

Howard Gardner

Garrett Hardin

Aldo Leopold

Ian McHarg

G. Tyler Miller

Sim Van der Ryn

Vaclav Smil

Joseph Siry

Sandra Steingraber

Lewis Thomas

Terry Tempest Williams

Edward O. Wilson

Visual Learning

Biophysical reality

Basic science

 

What is the predominant pattern you see?

trees


Do you see the Chess board?


Chess board

hoem

Concepts discussed and ecological solutions related to essay writing.


 
Environs health markets Environs biocenose ecosystem traditional