Secondary 3 Vocabulary for Environment and Sustainability

Environmental issues are difficult partly because they connect systems that operate at different scales: individual behaviour, cities, ecosystems, energy, economics and climate. Good vocabulary helps students describe those relationships without reducing every issue to “save the environment”.

This guide complements the Top 100 Vocabulary List Secondary 3 Grade A1. It uses the hero’s reasoning vocabulary—empirical, pragmatic, equity, resilience, evaluate and synthesis—inside environmental questions.

Sustainability

Sustainability concerns meeting present needs without undermining the ability of future people and systems to meet theirs. It includes environmental, economic and social dimensions.

Mitigation and adaptation

Mitigation reduces the causes or severity of a problem. In climate policy, mitigation often means reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. Adaptation adjusts systems to cope with effects that are already occurring or expected.

Resilience

Environmental resilience is the capacity of a system or community to withstand disruption, recover and adapt. It is not the same as preventing every disruption.

Biodiversity

Biodiversity refers to the variety of life at genetic, species and ecosystem levels. Discussions should move beyond “more animals” toward ecological relationships and system stability.

Ecosystem

An ecosystem includes organisms and their physical environment interacting as a system. Changes to one part can create indirect consequences elsewhere.

Externality

An externality is a cost or benefit experienced by people who were not directly part of the decision. Pollution is a common example: private activity can impose public costs.

Resource allocation

Environmental policy often involves limited land, money, water or energy. Allocation vocabulary helps students ask how scarce resources are distributed and according to which priorities.

Renewable and finite

Renewable resources can replenish under suitable conditions; finite resources exist in limited quantities on human time scales. Renewable does not automatically mean impact-free.

Efficiency and sufficiency

Efficiency means obtaining more useful output from fewer resources. Sufficiency asks whether total consumption can remain within sustainable limits. An efficient device can still increase total resource use if usage expands dramatically.

Circularity

A circular approach seeks to keep materials in use through repair, reuse, remanufacture and recycling rather than a simple take-make-dispose model.

Environmental equity

Environmental harms and benefits are not always distributed equally. Equity asks who experiences pollution, heat, flooding, green space or transition costs.

Trade-offs

A dam may provide low-carbon electricity while disrupting ecosystems. Dense housing may reduce travel distances while increasing local heat and crowding. Strong discussion names trade-offs instead of pretending every environmental choice has one dimension.

Lifecycle thinking

Assess impact across production, transport, use and disposal. A product that appears green during use may carry significant manufacturing costs.

Evidence vocabulary

Environmental claims should distinguish empirical measurements, projections, models, scenarios and uncertainty. A model is not a crystal ball; it is a structured representation based on assumptions and evidence.

Precaution

A precautionary approach may justify action before complete certainty when potential harm is severe or irreversible. The challenge is to make precaution proportionate rather than limitless.

Pragmatic environmental policy

A pragmatic policy works within technological, financial and social constraints while still moving toward environmental goals. Pragmatism should not become an excuse for ignoring long-term consequences.

Worked discussion: transport

“Reducing transport emissions requires more than persuading individuals to drive less. A pragmatic strategy combines reliable public transport, walkable design and incentives that make lower-carbon choices convenient. Equity matters because alternatives must remain accessible to people with different mobility and work needs.”

Worked discussion: food waste

Food waste has environmental costs because land, water, energy and transport are invested before food is discarded. Solutions can include better forecasting, redistribution, portion design and consumer behaviour rather than one slogan.

A topic vocabulary bank

• sustainability
• mitigation
• adaptation
• resilience
• biodiversity
• ecosystem
• emissions
• externality
• circularity
• resource allocation
• equity
• trade-off

Practice routine

Choose one environmental issue. Identify the system, stakeholders, causes, consequences, mitigation options, adaptation options, evidence and equity implications. Then give a qualified recommendation.

Return to the hero

Use the Secondary 3 Grade A1 hero to supply the reasoning layer around environmental vocabulary: empirical evidence, pragmatic choices, ethical questions, equity, synthesis and evaluation.

Checkpoint

• Can you distinguish mitigation from adaptation?
• Can you explain resilience?
• Can you identify lifecycle effects and externalities?
• Can you discuss environmental equity?
• Can you name genuine trade-offs?
• Can you connect recommendations to evidence and constraints?

If so, environmental vocabulary becomes a language for systems rather than a list of green-sounding words.