How Do Humans Affect Nature?

Every day, you make choices that can help or hurt the natural world. When you recycle, plant trees, or pick up litter, you help nature. When people dump garbage, cut down forests, or pour chemicals into rivers, they harm nature. Learning about human effects on nature helps you understand how to make better choices for the environment.

You have already learned about Caring for Our Surroundings, which showed you why it is important to look after the places where you live and play. Now you will go deeper and explore how human actions change the natural world.

Humans can do things that help nature, like recycling, planting trees, and keeping parks clean. But humans can also do things that harm nature, like cutting down trees, dumping garbage, and burning fuel in cars and factories.

Here are some examples of harmful actions and what they cause:

• Cutting down trees (deforestation): Animals like owls, bears, and woodpeckers lose their homes.
• Dumping garbage in lakes and rivers: Fish get sick and may die from the dirty water.
• Burning fuel in cars and factories: Harmful gases go into the air and cause air pollution.
• Pouring chemicals into rivers: Plants and fish are poisoned and can die.
• Oil spills in the ocean: Oil coats the feathers of seabirds, making it impossible for them to fly or swim.

You can also learn more about how we use Earth's resources wisely by exploring Using Earth's Resources and Sharing Earth's Resources.

Canada has many special natural places, and human actions affect each one differently.

• Prairie grasslands: Wide, flat, grassy lands where farming can remove wild plants that animals need.
• Boreal forest: A huge woodland where logging removes trees that animals depend on.
• Arctic tundra: Canada's cold northern land where rising temperatures melt the frozen ground and change habitats.
• Wetlands: Wet, marshy areas that are important homes for birds, frogs, and other wildlife. Draining wetlands destroys these homes.

When sea ice in the Arctic melts because of climate change, polar bears lose the ice they need to hunt seals. This is a serious problem caused by warming temperatures.

You have the power to make a difference! Here are some simple actions you can take every day:

• Sort your recycling into the correct bins at home and school.
• Turn off the tap while brushing your teeth to save clean water.
• Walk, ride a bike, or take the bus instead of driving a car.
• Pick up litter in parks so animals do not eat or get hurt by it.
• Compost food scraps to turn waste into rich soil for gardens.
• Use reusable bags instead of plastic bags to reduce waste.

You can also explore Protecting Our World and Making Good Choices to discover even more ways to help the environment.

Pollution: Pollution means harmful things like chemicals, garbage, or exhaust gases that are added to the air, water, or land and cause damage to living things. For example, smoke from cars is air pollution.

Habitat: A habitat is the natural place where a plant or animal lives and finds everything it needs, like food, water, and shelter. A forest is a habitat for owls and bears.

Deforestation: Deforestation means cutting down large numbers of trees. When forests are cut down, animals lose their homes and the land can erode.

Recycling: Recycling means taking used materials like paper, plastic, and glass and turning them into new products. Recycling helps keep waste out of landfills and protects nature.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: These are three actions that help you create less waste. Reduce means using less, reuse means finding new uses for old things, and recycle means sorting waste so it can be made into something new.

Composting: Composting means collecting food scraps and letting them break down naturally into rich soil that helps plants grow. Many Canadian cities provide green bins for composting.

Renewable resource: A renewable resource is something found in nature that can be replaced or used again, like sunlight. Sunlight can be used to make solar energy every day and will not run out.

Climate change: Climate change means the slow warming of Earth's temperatures over time. It causes ice in the Arctic to melt, which affects animals like polar bears.

Wetlands: Wetlands are wet, marshy areas of land that are home to many birds, frogs, fish, and other animals. They also help filter water and reduce flooding.

Permafrost: Permafrost is permanently frozen ground found in Canada's North. When it melts because of warming temperatures, the land sinks and animal habitats are destroyed.

Invasive plants: Invasive plants are plants that do not naturally belong in an area. They spread quickly and crowd out native plants that local animals need for food and shelter.

Oil spill: An oil spill happens when oil leaks into the ocean or a waterway. It coats the feathers of seabirds and harms fish and other sea animals.

You can practice what you have learned by thinking about the choices you make every day. Ask yourself: Does this action help or harm nature? You can also join a school group that cleans up a local park or trail this is one of the best ways to protect Community Problem Solving and local wildlife habitats.

Think about how Climate and Geography Impact the natural places near your home, and consider what small steps you can take to protect them.

You have already explored Caring for Our Surroundings, which gave you a strong foundation for understanding why nature needs our help. That topic prepared you to think about how your actions affect the world around you.

Now that you understand human effects on nature, you are ready to explore even bigger ideas. You will soon learn about Environmental Protection, Community Environmental Effects, Parks and Conservation, and Sustainable Development. You will also explore Human Geography and Natural Processes to understand how people and nature are connected in even deeper ways.

This topic connects to many other important ideas you will explore:

• Using Earth's Resources You will learn how people use natural resources like water, trees, and sunlight, and why it is important to use them wisely.
• Protecting Our World You will discover actions that help keep the environment safe and healthy for all living things.
• Making Good Choices You will explore how the choices you make every day can help or harm the natural world.
• Sharing Earth's Resources You will learn why it is important for all people to share and care for Earth's resources fairly.
• Climate and Geography Impact You will see how climate and the shape of the land affect the plants and animals that live in different places.
• Community Problem Solving You will find out how communities work together to solve environmental problems and protect nature.
• Environmental Protection You will go deeper into the laws and actions that protect Canada's natural places.
• Community Environmental Effects You will explore how the actions of a whole community can change the environment around it.
• Parks and Conservation You will learn how national parks like Banff help protect wildlife and natural habitats.
• Sustainable Development You will discover how people can build and grow communities without destroying the natural world.
• Human Geography You will explore how people live on and change the land in different parts of the world.
• Natural Processes You will learn about the natural changes that happen on Earth, like forest recovery after a wildfire.