Kristi Mudd, age 13, of Johnson City? Tenn., for her 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.
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 kinds of plants and. animals live there and how they live.
One important group of abiotic environmental factors make up what is called the weather. 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 protect themselves from harsh climates.
Other abiotic factors include the amount of living space and certain nutrients or nourishing substances that are available to an organism.
Biotic environment includes food, plants, animals and their interactions among one another and the abiotic environment. Man's survival and well being depend largely on the foods he eats, such as fruit, vegetables and meat. It also depends on his associations with other living things.
His social and cultural surroundings are also an important part of man's 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 their fellow man what they have learned.
By passing on knowledge, man has developed religion, art, music, literature, technology and science.
Man's cultural inheritance and biological inheritance have enabled him to advance beyond any animal in controlling his environment. He is now exploring the environment of outer space.
Environment is important to man. In 1970, the National Environmental Policy Act became law. It requires that an environmental impact statement, which is a report evaluating all planned projects or programs which must seriously affect the environment, be issued by any agency that plans to build various facilities including dams, highways and power plants.