Michael Barker, age 15, of Decatur, I11., for his question:
WHAT IS ABIOTIC AND BIOTIC ENVIRONMENT?
The forces and conditions that surround and influence living and nonliving things are called environment. Abiotic environment is made up of nonliving environmental factors, such as temperature and sunlight. Living or recently living things, such as food and seaweed, make up the biotic environment.
Both abiotic and biotic environments interact to make up the total environment of living and nonliving things.
Abiotic environment includes such factors as soil, water, atmosphere and radiation. The abiotic environment is made up of many objects and forces that influence one another and influence the surrounding community of living things.
As an example, a river current may influence the shape of rocks lying along the river bottom. But the river's temperature, clearness and chemical composition will also influence what type of plants and animals live there and how they live.
The weather is one important group of abiotic environmental factors. Living and nonliving things are influenced by rain, hot or cold temperature, snow, evaporation of water, wind and humidity, which is the amount of water vapor in the air.
Many plants and animals die each year because of weather conditions. And human beings, of course, build homes and wear clothes to adapt to the climate.
Other abiotic factors include the amount of living space and certain nutrients or nourishing substances that are available to the organism.
Biotic environment includes food, plants, animals and their interactions among one another. Human survival and well being depends largely on diet, such as fruit, vegetables and meat. It also depends on associations with other living things.
Social and cultural surroundings are also an important part of our biotic environment.
How are man's social and cultural surroundings part of his biotic environment? It is because his highly developed nervous system has made possible memory, reason and communication? Human beings teach their children and each other what they have learned.
By passing on knowledge, religion, art, music, literature, technology and science have developed.
Our cultural inheritance and biological inheritance have enabled us to advance beyond any animal in controlling our environment. We are now exploring the environment of outer space.
Environment is critical to human survival. In 170, the National Environmental Policy Act became law. It requires that an environmental impact statement, which is a report evaluating all planned projects or programs that may affect the environment, be issued by any agency overseeing the plans to build various facilities, including dams, highways and power plants.