OER - Open Educational Resources for Environmental Studies

This text surveys findings of the new field of Environmental History about how the environment of the Americas influenced the actions of people here and how people affected their environments, from prehistory to the present.

This text provides a survey of basic scientific principles needed to understand current environmental problems and evaluate alternatives for solving those problems

This course is a survey of the fundamental political, economic, and ecological principles that define the important environmental issues of our time. Topics include ecology, climate change, biodiversity, energy, and sustainability.

1: Measurement
2: Chemical Elements
3: Chemical Compounds
4: Organic Compounds
5: Chemical Reactions
6: Energy
7: The Atmosphere and Oceans
8: Biochemistry
9: Biogeochemical Cycles

Anthropogenic climate change is one of the, if not the most, pressing issues of our times. The problems that it causes range across many social and environmental domains from habitat and species loss and displacement to the more human and social concerns and issues of access to water, sea level rise that affects coastal communities, to economic degradation as a result of the aforementioned and other connected issues such as increased frequency of storms, droughts, wildfires, and the like.

A study of human ecology through the analysis of the interrelationships between science and technology, the means these provide for manipulation of environment and the effects of this manipulation on the environment and on human populations.

1: The Nature of Science
2: Introduction to Environmental Sciences
3: Population Ecology
4: Human Demography
5: Motion and Forces
6: Energy
7: Non-Renewable Energy
8: Alternative Energy
9: Air Pollution
10: Climate Change
11: Water

This text will provide you with knowledge and information on the main operating principles of devices/appliances in common use and will help you in making energy efficient and economical choices. The objective of the text is to expose you to energy efficiency in day to day life in order to save money and energy and thereby protect the environment. The author hopes the information in this course will help you become an environmentally-responsible individual of this Global Village.

This Environmental Analysis textbook provides information about general lab safety, laboratory equipment, laboratory foundations, soil properties, groundwater, total maximum daily load, and stormwater.

A free and open textbook that enables students to develop a nuanced understanding of today’s most pressing environmental issues. This college-level open textbook covers the most salient environmental issues from a biological perspective and helps students grasp the scientific foundation of environmental topics so they can better understand the world around them and their impact upon it.

This text addresses the principles of aquatic chemistry and applications with emphasis on acid-base reactions, metal speciation and solubility, and oxidation-reduction reactions in water.

A comprehensive and up-to-date textbook that is designed for use in college-level courses on the environmental aspects of Earth Science. It has a focus on Earth systems, climate change and glaciation, on natural hazard processes such as earthquakes, volcanoes, slope failures, and flooding, and on Earth resources such as water, energy, and metals.

1: Main concepts and history
2: Types and habitats
3: Microbial Ecology
4: Microbial Metabolism
5: Microbial Genetics
6: Microbial biotechnology
7: Environmental application
8: Environmental Microbiomes
9: Case study

Environmental science is the dynamic, interdisciplinary study of the interaction of living and non-living parts of the environment, with special focus on the impact of humans on the environment. The study of environmental science includes circumstances, objects, or conditions by which an organism or community is surrounded and the complex ways in which they interact.

This textbook is intended to provide the core elements of a curriculum for teaching environmental science at the introductory level in Canadian colleges and universities. This book is suitable for students beginning a program in environmental science, environmental studies, or sustainability. It is also appropriate for arts students who require a science elective, and for science students who require a non-major elective.

This text will challenge you to develop critical thinking skills for confronting global issues and may even impact the way you approach your daily life. Environmental science is an interdisciplinary field that draws heavily on the sciences but assumes that humanity (or any other group of organisms) maintains a central focus. This course will overview some basic concepts of the “hardsciences,” (chemistry, biology, et cetera) and will then focus on issues that confront humanity today.

Chapter 1: Environmental toxicology
Chapter 2: Environmental Chemistry, Chemicals
Chapter 3: Environmental Chemistry, from Fate to Exposure
Chapter 4: Toxicology
Chapter 5: Population, Community and Ecosystem Ecotoxicology
Chapter 6. Risk assessment & regulation

The book aims at covering the field in its full width, including aspects of environmental chemistry, ecotoxicology, toxicology and risk assessment. This contributes to improving the quality, continuity and transparency of the education in environmental toxicology. We make sure that fundamental insights on fate and effects of chemicals gained in the past are combined with recent approaches of effect assessment and molecular analysis of mechanisms causing toxicity.

1: Oceans and Coastal Environments
2: Climate and Carbon Cycle
3: El Niño and La Niña
4: The Warming of Our Oceans
5: Ocean Acidification
6: Pollution- Sources and Types
7: Coral Reefs and Diversity
8: Invasive Species
9: Fisheries Management
10: Energy From the Sea
11: Major Environmental Events
12: Volunteer to be Victorious

The Environment in the Age of the Internet: Activists, Communication, and the Digital Landscape is an interdisciplinary collection that draws together research and answers from media and communication studies, social sciences, modern history, and folklore studies. Edited by Heike Graf, its focus is on the communicative approaches taken by different groups to ecological issues, shedding light on how these groups tell their distinctive stories of "the environment".

A great variety of processes affect the surface of the Earth. Topics to be covered are production and movement of surficial materials; soils and soil erosion; precipitation; streams and lakes; groundwater flow; glaciers and their deposits. The text combines aspects of geology, climatology, hydrology, and soil science to present a coherent introduction to the surface of the Earth, with emphasis on both fundamental concepts and practical applications.

An introduction to environmental science through an examination of society's use of soil, water, mineral, and energy resources, and the environmental consequences of resource exploitation. This course examines human population growth and sustainable management of biodiversity and natural resources by applying the scientific method of hypothesis testing to understand the implications of human activities within the global ecosystem.

An introductory-level science course that emphasizes the challenges facing food systems in the 21st century, and issues of sustainability for agriculture and other food production activities, as well as the challenges posed by food insecurity and modern diets to human health and well-being.

1: Environmental Science and Sustainability
2: The Process of Science
3: Matter, Energy, and Life
4: Ethics and Policy
5: Community and Population Ecology
6: Evolution and the Origin of Species
7: Conservation Biology
8: Atmosphere and Air Pollution
9: Climate Change
10: Conventional and Sustainable Energy
11: Food and Hunger
12: Conventional and Sustainable Agriculture
13: Geology
14: Water Availability and Use
15: Cycling of Matter in the Earth System
16: Solid Waste Management
17: Urbanization
18: Environmental Justice and Pollutants

This book uses the basic principles of biology and earth science as a context for understanding environmental policies and resource management practices. Our planet is facing unprecedented environmental challenges, from oil spills to global climate change. In ENSC 1000, you will learn about the science behind these problems; preparing you to make an informed, invaluable contribution to Earth’s future.

1: Attributions
4: Module 1- The Building Blocks of Life
5: Module 2- Life’s Components- Biological Macromolecules
6: Module 3- The Cell
7: Module 4- The Plasma Membrane
8: Module 5- Energy and Cellular Respiration
9: Module 6- Photosynthesis
10: Module 7- The Cell Cycle, Mitosis, and Meiosis
11: Module 8- DNA Replication and Gene Expression
12: Module 9- Genetics
13: Module 10- Biotechnology
14: Module 11- Diversity of Life I
15: Module 12- Diversity of Life II
16: Module 13- Evolution
17: Module 14- Ecology
18: Module 15- Ecosystems and Biomes

Microbiomes: Health and the Environment was created to provide accessible insight into the novel and complex world of polymicrobial community interactions. As we push forward into the future of medicine and environmental health, it is imperative that we learn from each other, from history, and keep up to date with the latest advances in research and technology. This book not only provides content from the latest microbiome studies, but contains interactive tools, videos, and thought-provoking questions.

This volume brings together an array of scholars, practitioners, and experts from multiple fields, creating a network of trans-disciplinary and multi-cultural perspectives to address the complex problems in marine conservation.

This online physical geography textbook is for students to gain a basic understanding of physical geography. It is an introduction to the processes and patterns of the physical environment and demonstrates connections between human activities and the Earth system. The text makes physical geography dynamic through active learning and multimedia integration. Formative and summative assessments encourages student learning as they progress through the text.

First and second-year college students are introduced to this expanding new field, comprehensively exploring the essential concepts from every branch of knowledge – including engineering and the applied arts, natural and social sciences, and the humanities. As sustainability is a multi-disciplinary area of study, the text is the product of multiple authors drawn from the diverse faculty of the University of Illinois

This course is intended to provide early undergraduates with experience in the practice of biodiversity research and to demystify the path to careers in this field.

Co-authored by undergraduate students at Worcester Polytechnic Institute while exploring issues of extinction and conservation of biodiversity.