Distinguish renewable from nonrenewable resources and explain the causes and interconnected nature of major global environmental challenges.
Resources divide into two basic categories. Renewable resources -- solar energy, wind, fresh water cycling through the water cycle, and timber if harvested at a sustainable rate -- can replenish naturally within a human timeframe. Nonrenewable resources -- fossil fuels and minerals -- exist in a fixed supply that formed over geologic time and cannot be replaced once used. This distinction underlies many of the region-specific issues studied this year, from Gulf-state oil economies to Amazon deforestation to Russia's natural gas exports.
Climate change, driven by rising concentrations of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, is producing rising global average temperatures, melting ice, rising sea levels, and more frequent extreme weather -- effects already visible in several regions studied this year, from Pacific island nations facing existential sea-level risk to more intense wildfire seasons in North America. Deforestation across the Amazon, the Congo Basin, and Southeast Asia reduces both biodiversity and the planet's capacity to store carbon. Water scarcity is intensifying in multiple regions -- the Middle East, parts of Africa, South Asia, and the American Southwest -- due to a combination of population growth, agricultural demand, and shifting climate patterns. Sustainability, a concept this week ties the whole course together with, means meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
Mastery looks like: They can classify resources as renewable or nonrenewable, including cases where use determines the category, and explain sustainability using a specific example while connecting it to at least two regions studied this year.
Common stumbles: Treating renewability as a fixed property of a resource rather than something that can depend on the rate of use; discussing environmental challenges as disconnected facts rather than an interconnected global pattern.