Environmental science independent study?

Question

I need some ideas on what I can do for an environmental science independent study.

Answer 1

The best idea is to Do it indepenently !!!!!!

Answer 2

There are a lot of things you can do, and what you choose will ultimately depend on whether you want something more reasearch oriented or something more "hands on." Your age and access to equipment will also likely be factors. Some suggestions I can give? Measure species diversity in a specific ecosystem - say your front yard. Or compare the diversity of your front yard with the same area of wilderness.

Try to figure out the impact of idling cars in drive throughs in your area.

If you have a recycling program in your city or town, try and find otu the process it goes through (ie, how are materials collected and sorted, where do they go, what are the costs, what is done with the recycled materials?) and then make suggestions to improve the system.

Since global warming is such a huge topic, there is A LOT of information about global warming, so it would be easy to focus on something very specific. How does the media portray global warming (I'll give a hint, no matter where you live, an argument can be made that the media are not presenting an entirely "balanced" view. Why is this a problem?) Or, for example, you could choose a spefic argument as to why human beings are the cause of global warming (think something out of an inconvenient truth) and then present ways in which people attempt to refute this argument.

Other more localised problems are always a possibility. Is there poor air quality somewhere in town? A polluted river or dump site? What are the impacts of these sites on the town as a whole? How can they be improved? You might also consider looking in the environmental impact of free newspapers - how many are distributed and where do they end up?

Hope I have given you some ideas - as you can see there is almost no limit to what you can do for something like this.