Significant ideas:
- The laws of thermodynamics govern the flow of energy in a system and the ability to do work.
- Systems can exist in alternative stable states or as equilibria between which there are tipping points.
- Destabilizing positive feedback mechanisms will drive systems toward these tipping points, whereas stabilizing negative feedback mechanisms will resist such changes.
Knowledge and understanding:
- The first law of thermodynamics is the principle of conservation of energy, which states that energy in an isolated system can be transformed but cannot be created or destroyed.
- The principle of conservation of energy can be modelled by the energy transformations along food chains and energy production systems.
- The second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy of a system increases over time. Entropy is a measure of the amount of disorder in a system. An increase in entropy arising from energy transformations reduces the energy available to do work.
- The second law of thermodynamics explains the inefficiency and decrease in available energy along a food chain and energy generation systems.
- As an open system, an ecosystem will normally exist in a stable equilibrium, either in a steady-state equilibrium or in one developing over time (for example, succession), and maintained by stabilizing negative feedback loops.
- Negative feedback loops (stabilizing) occur when the output of a process inhibits or reverses the operation of the same process in such a way as to reduce change—it counteracts deviation.
- Positive feedback loops (destabilizing) will tend to amplify changes and drive the system toward a tipping point where a new equilibrium is adopted.
- The resilience of a system, ecological or social, refers to its tendency to avoid such tipping points and maintain stability.
- Diversity and the size of storages within systems can contribute to their resilience and affect their speed of response to change (time lags).
- Humans can affect the resilience of systems through reducing these storages and diversity.
- The delays involved in feedback loops make it difficult to predict tipping points and add to the complexity of modelling systems.
Applications and skills:
- Explain the implications of the laws of thermodynamics to ecological systems.
- Discuss resilience in a variety of systems.
- Evaluate the possible consequences of tipping points.
International-mindedness:
- The use of energy in one part of the globe may lead to a tipping point or time lag that influences the entire planet’s ecological equilibrium.
Theory of knowledge:
- The laws of thermodynamics are examples of scientific laws—in which ways do scientific laws differ from the laws of human science subjects, such as economics?
Connections:
- Systems and models (1.2)
- Communities and ecosystems (2.2)
- Terrestrial food production systems and food choices (5.2)
- Energy choices and security (7.1)