STRUCTURE OF THE ENVIRONMENT

The natural environment encompasses all living and nonliving things occurring naturally on Earth or some region thereof. It is an environment that encompasses the interaction of all living species. The two main parts (living and nonliving things), are further divided into subparts. These parts form the basic structure of the environment. What I intend doing is to give an outline of the structure of the environment.

The two main parts constituting the environment are:

§  LIVING THINGS(biotic)

§  NONLIVING THINGS(abiotic)

LIVING THINGS: They comprise of plants, animals, protist etc. 

Plant is one of the living organisms which form the vegetable kingdom; a vegetable.

 Animal is a living being characterized by sensation and motion (from Latin animal, a living being from anima, air, breath, life, the soul, and from a root an, to breathe or blow).

 Protist is any organism belonging to a large group, including bacteria, protozoans and fungi, regarded as distinct from plants and animals. The group is usually now restricted to protozoans, unicellular algae, and simple fungi(origin is 19^th century, from New Latin Protista, most primitive organisms, from Greek protistos, the very first, from protos, first). However, classification of living things (Taxonomy) has varied over time due to advancement in microscopy and different viewpoints of individual researchers, besides, research is ongoing.



Living things are things that are alive...they don't necessarily have to breathe or have hearts or brains. Living things are collections of cells and nerves that grow and develop over time.

NONLIVING THINGS: They form the inanimate portion of the environment. To my mind they compose the infrastructure of the environment-collectively they support life on planet Earth.

Non-Living things are things that are not alive...that have no life at all. Things that are not made up of cells or nerves and do not grow.

 Science looks at nonliving things from three broad perspectives as follows:

§  GEOLOGY-relates to ground, soil, minerals, rock, etc.

§  HYDROLOGY-relates to water

§  ATMOSPHERE-relates air, radiation etc.

GEOLOGY: It is defined as the scientific study of the origin, structure and composition of the earth. Current scientific knowledge divides the earth into five layers:

      The earth’s crust-the hard outer cover

      The outer mantle-it follows the crust

      The inner mantle-it follows the outer mantle

      The outer core-it follows the inner mantle

      The inner core-it follows the outer core, and forms the center of the earth

The crust and the outer mantle together is called lithosphere.

HYDROLOGY: It is the scientific study of the earth’s water, especially its movement in relation to land. Water bodies on earth are:

      Oceans

      Rivers

      Lakes

      Ponds

      Streams

ATMOSPHERE: the mixture of gases that surrounds the earth. The gases are:

      Nitrogen        -        78%

      Oxygen           -        21%

      Argon and other inert gases, such as carbon dioxide    -     1%

Earth Science generally recognizes four sphere of the planet Earth as follows:

      Lithosphere  -  rock

      Hydrosphere  -  water

      Atmosphere  -  air

      Biosphere  -  life   

In summation, the environment which encompasses all living and nonliving things, basically comprises of two main parts- living things and nonliving things. The two parts are split into subparts. These parts interrelate and interact to generate a vibrant environment. Earth Science generally recognizes four spheres of the environment- lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere and biosphere

 

 

 

Reference:

The New Webster Dictionary (1965)

Collins English Dictionary-Desktop (2005)

Oxford Advance Learners Dictionary

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_environment