Experiment 3 : Environment

Target Audience: Polytechnic Teachers and Students in Tamilnadu

Subject: Life and Employability Skill Practical, M scheme, 4th and 5th Semester
Objectives: To improve the listening and writing skill of the students
Question Pattern in Exam: Listen to the following passage and fill in the blanks (5 marks)

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Listen to the following passage read out to you and fill in the blanks with the exact words heard:

                                                                                Environment

Environment, in broader sense, refers to everything around us both the living organisms, otherwise known as biotic components such as human beings, animals, birds, trees and plants and the non-living organisms, also called as abiotic components such as rocks, rivers, mountains and planets.  Environmental study chiefly focuses on how Nature works, how the different components of nature interact with each other and how we, as human beings, affect our environment.

Everything in nature is interconnected and interdependent, or at least exchange what they have, primarily for their survival and existence.   Plants, as we know, stand by soil, water, air and the sun light and identically human beings and animals are fed on by the same plants. What we breathe out that the trees breathe in and vice versa.  The earth itself comprises of four spheres to fulfill many of the requirements of lives on it, that is, the land surfaces of earth making Lithosphere offers minerals and materials for construction and agriculture, the water surface of the earth forming hydrosphere, remains elixir of all lives,  the air surface, recognized as atmosphere, in turn, featherbeds all forms of life and finally, various life forms on earth including micro organisms, collectively known as biosphere supplies the food we eat, the dress we wear and the transport we enjoy.

                What do you mean by natural resources?  Everything that is obtained from nature and is very beneficial and essential for lives on earth can be named as natural resources.  But what happens to these natural resources?  Man’s increasing demand depletes these resources in a much faster rate. For instance, the following deforestation rate would tear your heart out to know that it is 26% in 1985, but 50% in 2005 and the same, as researchers anticipate, would be 67% in 2020.  Nature is ready to renew its resources but man’s consumption is higher than nature’s replenishing rate. 

Deforestation leads to lack of rainfalls that affects agriculture that, in turn, questions the food supply to man who works his fingers to the bone to deforestation.  Thus the balance among four spheres is disturbed by man who thus, knowing or unknowingly, contributes to global warming, climate change and various forms of pollution which results in natural disasters such as tsunami, earthquake and cyclones. What mother earth has provided to man and what man has given in turn to her mother is the question that would awaken man to preserve the environment.

Questions:

1.  Living organisms are otherwise known as biotic components.

2. Man’s consumption is higher than nature’s replenishing rate.

3. The water surface of earth forming hydrosphere remains the elixir of lives on earth.

4. Deforestation leads to lack of rainfalls that affects the agriculture.

5. But What happens to these natural resources?

You can also play the following video to understand more about environment: