Summer Assignment: IB Environmental Systems & Societies 2015-16
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Dear future IB ESS students,
Welcome! I hope you will have a great summer.
Please send me YOUR personal e-mail address ([email protected]) as soon as possible.
You have a summer assignment which consists of 3 parts.
The 1st 2 parts involve reading &/or listeningabout Environmental issues from recent news articles and
summarizing & responding to their ideas.
The 3rd part involves you doing some research about how much we all depend on our Environment.
This Summer Assignment will help you:
 get familiar with the level & variety of reading and writing assignments that you will be doing
throughout the year.
 recognize & reflect upon how you interact with the Environment & how you depend on it
 prepare for a “flipped classroom design.” You will (on a daily basis & on your own) watch videos &
read & take notes from posted PowerPoints, your texts & websites for particular lessons &/or
topics, & answer relevant questions.
The Summer Assignment is due on Friday 9/4. Your completion & understanding of the work will be
assessed in class during the 2nd week of classes.
You can e-mail me over the summer to clarify anything or for suggestions about articles. You will also
have an opportunity to ask questions during the 1st week. But I suggest you get started on the readings &
questions before school starts. Don’t get overwhelmed with work the 1st week.
-- Ms Kane
PART 1 – Explore issues concerning NYC’s valuable resource: WATER
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Go to http://www.wnyc.org/series/water/
If you can, download the podcast. (If you have trouble, just bookmark the website so you can go
back to it over the summer.)
Listen to &/or read each of the segments in this series (“The Cost of Our Water” series aired on
WNYC’s Morning Edition npr newscast from June 15 – June 19 2015)
Write a brief summary of each segment that includes the following information:
1. What area(s) outside the city does this segment focus on? (Who (& Where) is the focus of this
segment?)
2. How has living in the NYC watershed affected the people in this area? (What is the impact? How
has it affected the locals & how has it affected the residents of NYC? Give both positive &
negative impacts if possible.)
3. Why is protecting the watershed for NYC so important? Why must we protect it even more
today & in the future?
You may want to use the template below to help you get the important information for each segment. (You
can replicate &/or modify this template.)
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Template for recording information from “The Cost of Our Water” series aired on WNYC’s Morning Edition
npr newscast from June 15 – June 19 2015:
Segment #
Segment Title
Date Aired
Who & Where?
What & How?
Why?
PART 2 – Keep up with current events
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Collect 4 news articles concerning environmental issues. Print or cut out the articles & attach a
written 1-2 paragraph summary (6 – 10 sentences) of the article. To get a head start, look up
“sustainability” because during the 1st week of school, you will choose one of these articles and
explain how it relates to sustainability.
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Two of the articles must be about local (Nassau County, Long Island, New York metro area) issues
and two must involve global issues. If you download articles, please include the URL or source.
Summer Assignments: IB Environmental Systems & Societies
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PART 3 – Get to Know our local Environment
In this class, you will learn about biomes and how their living and non-living components interact in
ecosystems. An “ecosystem service” identifies the benefits we (and other earthlings) use or need from our
environment to live. Examples of such ecosystem services are water that we drink & bathe in, air that we
breathe, and raw materials for shelter and energy.
Surely you want to understand how much we humans depend on our environment to provide us with
our basic necessities – these ecosystem services. The questions below introduce you to what these
ecosystem services look like in our own local area (Long Island & New York) and give you an overview of the
contents of this course.
PLEASE PUT YOUR LEGIBLE ANSWERS ON A SEPARATE PAGE. Avoid one-word, minimalist answers.
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What biome do we live in on Long Island? (name & briefly describe the climate)
What is the average annual rainfall in our area?
When does most of that rain fall? When does it hardly ever rain (or snow)?
Who lived here before the Europeans arrived? How long did these inhabitants occupy this island? How
long ago did those Europeans get here?
5. Record the populations of Nassau & Suffolk Counties in 1900 & today (Don’t include Brooklyn & Queens
in this census, even though they physically occupy the western end of Long Island.)
6. Where does your water come from? Where does water for Brooklyn and Queens come from?
7. List the 3 largest rivers on Long Island and locate them in terms of distance and direction from here in
Glen Head. Do we use any of these rivers for our drinking water? Why or why not?
8. Which Long Island river has the largest watershed? In your answer, define the term watershed.
9. About how many endangered (or extinct) species exist(ed) here on Long Island? What types of
organisms are (were) they? Where did they live? Who endangered them or killed them off? How and
when?
10. List 3 plants that are native to Long Island.
11. Who supplies your electrical power? Where is your local source of power (power plant)? What does it
use as fuel? How does the electricity get from the power plant to you?
12. Where does your sewage go after you flush your toilets or wash your hands? Where does the sewage go
in Glen Cove or Great Neck or Rockville Center? Why are those municipalities different?
13. What happens to your trash after you set it out at the curb? Give both the short-term and long-term
disposal answers.
14. What is Long Island’s current major agricultural product? What was our major agricultural product in
1900?
15. Choose any meal – breakfast, lunch or dinner – and list all the items you typically eat. Then find out
where each item comes from (where it was grown and/or produced). Read the nutrition label if it was
processed, & list the ingredients. Now that you know what was in it, will you eat it again? Why or why
not?