High School · Science
Environmental Science
How the living world works, and how people fit into it.
Every breath you take, every glass of water you drink and every meal you eat depends on systems much bigger than you: forests and oceans that trade carbon with the air, bacteria that pull nitrogen out of the sky, and rivers that carry rain back to the sea. Environmental science is the study of those systems and of how human choices change them.
It borrows from biology, chemistry, Earth science and even economics. These free lessons are written for high school students and anyone reviewing before a test. Each topic explains one big idea with original diagrams, real data from agencies like NOAA, USGS and NASA, and ends with a quiz.
What you'll learn
Systems
How nature is connected
How living things and their surroundings form ecosystems, and why removing one species can reshape a whole landscape.
Energy and matter
Where everything goes
How energy flows one way through food webs while carbon, nitrogen and water cycle around the planet again and again.
Evidence
How scientists know
Real experiments and measurements, like decades of carbon dioxide readings from Hawaii, and how to read the data yourself.
People
Our footprint and our fixes
How farming, fuels and land use change the environment, and what restoration and smarter choices can do about it.
Topics
- Live
Ecosystems: How Life, Energy and Matter Connect
Biotic and abiotic factors, food webs, energy pyramids and the 10% rule, the carbon, nitrogen and water cycles, biomes, succession, keystone species, human impacts, a vocabulary list and a quiz.
- Coming soon
Biodiversity and Conservation
Why variety matters, what drives extinction, and how protected areas and recovery plans work.
- Coming soon
Water Resources
Watersheds, groundwater, drinking water and what happens to water after it goes down the drain.
- Coming soon
Climate and the Atmosphere
The greenhouse effect, how climate differs from weather, and how scientists measure a changing climate.
- Coming soon
Energy Resources
Fossil fuels, nuclear power, solar, wind and the trade-offs behind every light switch.
- Coming soon
Pollution and Sustainability
Air, water and soil pollution, waste, and what it takes to meet today's needs without stealing from the future.
Coming-soon topics are not written yet. Check back, or watch the School section on the Jugami home page for new lessons.
About these lessons
Every topic lists its sources at the end, drawn from science agencies such as NOAA, USGS, NASA and the National Park Service, from National Geographic Education, and from the free OpenStax college textbooks. All diagrams are original SVG drawings made for Jugami. Quizzes save your best score only on your own device.
Environmental science leans on the rest of science. The cells you meet in biology run the photosynthesis and respiration that power every ecosystem, and the chemistry of elements like carbon and nitrogen explains how matter cycles through air, water, soil and living things.