Module 6 – Water

Date of implemented Module: 24.5.2024.

Place of implementation: Rade Dodić Elementary School, Trstenik

Facilitator: Marijana Trifunović Dimitrijević

Life is defined as any system capable of performing functions such as eating, metabolizing, excreting, breathing, moving, growing, reproducing, and responding to external stimuli. Every living being is continuously interacting with the external environment, exchanging nutrients and energy to perform its basic vital functions. Human beings are part of this world that counts millions of different species of organisms, many of which are yet to be described.

Since humans are able to manage every kind of material using their brain and their hands (with the extra tool of technology since 250 years ago), they have had a big impact on the natural environment, transforming it for their needs. This ability has given them more comfortable lifestyles, a longer life-span and overall the possibility to occupy large portions of this planet with big cities, intensive agriculture, livestock, big harbors, etc. The backside of human successful lifestyle is the loss in natural habitat and biodiversity, through a long lasting series of impacts on wilderness.

There are global issues that are affecting almost all the lands and oceans of the world, like:

CLIMATE CHANGE
HABITAT ALTERATION
NON-INDIGENOUS SPECIES
POLLUTION
LITTER
DEFORESTATION, etc.

Zooming some specific ecosystems, we can see that impacts varies from one to another:

– In the ocean BIG FISHERIES are creating a direct impact on organisms with a continuous biomass removal of target and non-target species (by-catch), affecting several taxonomic groups of invertebrates and vertebrates, and provoking serious imbalances in the food webs worldwide;

– On the land AGRICULTURE and LIVESTOCKS consume large amounts of freshwater, and are responsible for one-quarter of the world’s greenhouse emissions and have enormous land use.

Our living planet has faced several big crises in the past because of natural events that have dramatically reduced the number of species during the so-called mass extinction events. These events have broken the natural equilibrium with big loss in biodiversity of flora and fauna.

Are humans causing a new mass extinction?

Are we able to stop this trend? How?