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Intro - Branches of Science

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13 views2 pages

Intro - Branches of Science

Uploaded by

Erika Noreen Dela Rosa
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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DOWNLOADABLE EXTRAS Introduction to Science 3

Branches of Science

Natural science is the science of the natural world. It is the experimental, observable, measurable aspects of our
world and things beyond our world. The other group of sciences are the social sciences which look at human
behaviours and societies. They are concerned with civilisation and the more human parts of the world. The
natural sciences are divided into three key areas and within those areas are subareas and within those subareas
are numerous sub-subareas.
The three main subareas are Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Earth Sciences. These are this author’s
opinion and others may rank other sciences as part of the main branches. Other branches may also include
astronomy, physics, chemistry and biology.

Life Sciences are to do with living things, they range from the very
small in microbiology (living things and parts of living things that have to be
viewed using a microscope) to the very large in ecology (whole sets of different
living things interacting together in ecosystems). The main subareas are:
• Botany is the study of plants and plant life.
• Zoology is the study of animals and animal life.
• Genetics is the study of inheritance and how features arise from genes
and interaction of genes and the environment.
• Medicine is the study of treating and preventing diseases.

Physical Sciences are to do with inanimate objects (non-living


things) or concepts such as energy and electricity. The main subareas are:
• Physics is the study of the nature and properties of matter (what all
things are made of) and energies (like movement, electricity, magnetism,
light, heat and sound).
• Chemistry is the study of the substances matter is made of and what
changes happen to those substances when the environment is changed in
different ways.
• Astronomy is the study of celestial objects, space and the physical
universe as a whole.

Earth Sciences are to do with our planet and how it changes. The
main subareas are:
• Geology is the study of the physical side of the history of the Earth and
focuses on the rocks and structural aspects.
• Palaeontology is the study of the life forms that existed in the past.
• Oceanography is the study of the oceans and seas.
• Meteorology is the study of our atmosphere and weather.

There is also the area of Environmental Science which is becoming more and more common as we look at
how we are impacting on our earth and how we can change what we are doing for the better. This area involves
studying aspects of botany, zoology, physics and chemistry.
4 Introduction to Science DOWNLOADABLE EXTRAS

There are hundreds of areas within these main branches and there are also new sciences being developed every
day as we keep discovering new things and developing new technologies.
Below are just a few of these specific areas of science:

Acarology is the study of ticks and mites, apiology is the study of


bees, electrochemistry is the study of relationships between electricity
and chemicals, batology is the study of brambles (prickly shrubs like
blackberries), calorifics is the study of heat, caliology is the study
of birds’ nests, edaphology is the study of soil, emetology is the
study of vomiting, eremology is the study of deserts, geogony is
the study of how the earth formed, hyetology is the study of rainfall,
ichnology is the study of fossilised footprints, kinematics is the study
of motion, lithology is the study of rocks, metallography is the study
of the structure of metals, nosology is the study of the classification
of diseases, optics is the study of light, seismology is the study of
earthquakes, herpetology is the study of reptiles and amphibians,
barology is the study of gravitation and catacoustics is the study of
echoes.

The Bunsen Burner

The website below can be accessed a few ways:


• Scan the QR code with your smartphone’s QR reader app (you may need to download the app).
• Click on the address.
• Copy and paste the address into your browser.

Want to learn more? Visit…


www.jove.com/science-
education/5035/introduction-
to-the-bunsen-burner

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