Page 120 - Computer - 9(A&B)

Relationship Between Society and Environment
Knowledge Plus
The humans are a part of the environment and at the Knowledge Plus
same time the humans form the society. So, in other The word ‘environment’ has been derived from the French
words, we can say that the society becomes part word ‘environer’ meaning to encircle or surround.
of the environment. The society interacts with the
environment and changes it at the same time. This interaction of the society with the environment affects the
ecological balance in the environment. The industrial development and the intensive agriculture that provides
the goods for our increasingly consumer-oriented society uses up large amounts of natural resources like water,
minerals, petroleum products, wood, etc.
The relationship between society and environment can be broadly defi ned into two forms:
 Physical Environment: Physical environment is composed of the conditions that nature provides to man.
It includes natural resources, the distribution of land and water, mountains and plains, minerals, plants
and animals, the climate and all the cosmic forces-gravitational, electrical, etc. that play upon the Earth and
affect our lives.
 Social Environment: The social environment of an individual is the culture that he or she lives in. The
social environment consists of three kinds of environment: Economic, Cultural and Psycho-social.
 The economic environment consists of all man-made goods, houses, roads, lands and gardens, domestic
animals, machines, stores of manufactured articles, etc. In short, it comprises of all the comforts and
conveniences which man has made to drive him out of the state of nature.
 The cultural environment includes the customs, traditions, laws, modes of Environment
thought and forms of knowledge and beliefs which form man’s cultural
inheritance. These traditions express the culture of the group to which they Social
belong.
 The psycho-social environment refers to the culture and climate of the
workplace. It is the most pervasive of all the environments and is so necessary Economy
for the humans that it can be totally explained in terms of social environment.
As we know that humans are the only species with developed brains and skills
which makes communication an indispensable need for them. It leads them to discover, evolve, create,
manifest and manipulate the rules, regulations and forums for a society whose diversity, stratifi cation and
development directly or indirectly affects the environment at large.

Ecosystem
Ecosystem is a community of all the living and non-living
components of nature that are dependent on each other. An
ecosystem is formed when living things like plants, animals
and other organisms in an area interact with each other
as well as with the non-living components like weather,
sun, soil, climate and atmosphere. In an ecosystem, each
organism has a role to play.
Though all ecosystems are unique, each ecosystem has three
primary components:
Autotrophs: Plants are autotrophs as they are the producers
of food. They convert energy from the sun or other sources
into food. They are called producers.
Heterotrophs: These are the organisms that depend upon
autotrophs for their food. Most of the heterotrophs are
animals. They are called consumers.

102
102