Page 291 - THE ONTARIO CURRICULUM, GRADES 11 AND 12 | Canadian and World Studies

D. ECOSYSTEMS AND HUMAN ACTIVITY
OVERALL EXPECTATIONS
By the end of this course, students will:
D1. Protecting the Natural Environment: assess the role of various strategies, organizations, and agreements in reducing the impact of human activity on the environment (FOCUS ON: Interrelationships; Geographic Perspective)
D2. Impacts of Human Activities: analyse impacts of human activities on ecological processes and on plant and animal species (FOCUS ON: Spatial Significance; Interrelationships)
D3. Ecological Processes: explain how various ecological and biological processes sustain life on Earth (FOCUS ON: Patterns and Trends; Interrelationships)
SPECIFIC EXPECTATIONS
D1. Protecting the Natural Environment
FOCUS ON: Interrelationships; Geographic Perspective
By the end of this course, students will:
D1.1 describe strategies that have been used to reduce pollution from human activities (e.g., banning the use of polluting chemicals; reformulating products to eliminate harmful ingredients, such as phosphates in detergents; installing filtration devices, such as stack scrubbers or catalytic converters,
to remove pollutants from emissions; using non- chemical alternatives to aerosol sprays, pesticides, and other products containing harmful chemicals)
Sample questions: “How does scientific research contribute to the discovery and solution of pollution problems? What part do governments, universities, and private industry play in this research?” “How can individuals help to minimize pollution?”
D1.2 assess ways in which international organiza- tions and agreements help to protect the global environment (e.g., organizations: Greenpeace, World Wildlife Fund, Sierra Club, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, United Nations Environment Programme; agreements: Kyoto Protocol, Montreal Protocol, Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement)
D1.3 assess physical and biological changes that have occurred in a local area (e.g., a creek, a
wetland, a woodlot, a quarry, a mine) as a result of a rehabilitation or restoration project
Using spatial skills: Students can support their investigation of environmental remediation by conducting a field study of a local area that has undergone restoration or rehabilitation.
D2. Impacts of Human Activities
FOCUS ON: Spatial Significance; Interrelationships
By the end of this course, students will:
D2.1 describe ways in which humans have altered ecological processes (e.g., by draining wetlands, paving over land, contaminating land and water with chemicals, deforestation, overharvesting), and explain the impacts of these activities on natural systems (e.g., loss of habitat, lowering of the water table, increase in levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, loss of species, disruption of food chains, formation of urban heat islands and related impacts on air and water quality)
D2.2 assess the effects on a natural system of the removal or introduction of a species (e.g., rabbits in Australia, zebra mussels in the Great Lakes, apple snails in Hawaii, Monterey pines in New Zealand, brown tree snakes on Guam)
Sample questions: “Why would people deliber- ately introduce a foreign species into a natural environment?” “Why do customs officers ask if you are bringing any plants or animals into the country?”
ECOSYSTEMS AND HUMAN ACTIVITY
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Living in a Sustainable World
CGR4E