Scribba
Environmental science borrows from almost every other science. One week is ecology, the next is atmospheric chemistry, then soil, water, energy, population and policy. What holds it together is a way of thinking: the world as connected systems, where matter and energy move between parts and a change in one place shows up somewhere else.
That makes it a class where diagrams beat paragraphs. If your notes can show what flows where, and what pushes back, you'll understand the material instead of memorizing a list of disconnected facts. Here's how to set that up on an iPad.
Draw every system as boxes and arrows
Nearly every topic in environmental science can be drawn the same way:
- Boxes are stocks, also called reservoirs or pools: the atmosphere, the ocean, soil, living things, a lake, a population.
- Arrows are flows, or fluxes: what moves from one box to another, like evaporation, photosynthesis, runoff or births.
- Labels on arrows name the process and, if your course gives them, how big the flow is.
- Inputs and outputs cross the edge of the system. Draw a dashed line around the system so it's clear what's inside.
Once you're used to this format, you'll see it everywhere: a watershed, a city's energy use, a fishery. Exam questions often describe a change ("deforestation increases in the region") and ask what happens downstream. A stock-and-flow diagram lets you trace the answer with your finger.
In Scribba, hold the Apple Pencil still at the end of a stroke and it snaps into a rectangle, circle or arrow. That keeps box-and-arrow diagrams tidy even when you're drawing during lecture. If you're drawing a lot of them, switch to the Shape tool so every stroke snaps.
Learn the cycles as one family
The biogeochemical cycles, usually water, carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus, are a staple of every environmental science course. Students often memorize them as four separate pictures. It works better to learn them as variations on one pattern.
For each cycle, draw the same skeleton and fill in what's different:
- The main reservoirs. Where is most of it stored?
- The key processes. For nitrogen, that's fixation, nitrification, denitrification and assimilation. For carbon, photosynthesis, respiration, combustion and decomposition.
- The slow parts and the fast parts. Some movements take days, others take geologic time.
- Is there a gas phase? The phosphorus cycle famously has no significant atmospheric part, which is a common exam question.
- How humans change it. Burning fossil fuels, applying fertilizer, building dams.
Draw each cycle once in lecture, then redraw it from memory a few days later and compare. Redrawing is one of the most effective ways to learn a process, because it's active recall instead of rereading. Our active recall guide explains why.
Tip: use one color for natural flows and another for human-driven flows on every cycle. By the end of the unit, you'll see the human influence at a glance across all four.
Mark feedback loops clearly
Feedback is the idea that trips students up most. A negative feedback loop pushes a system back toward balance. A positive feedback loop amplifies a change, like melting ice exposing darker surfaces that absorb more heat, which melts more ice.
Draw loops as a circle of arrows and write a small plus or minus on each link: plus if the two things move in the same direction, minus if they move in opposite directions. Then count the minus signs around the loop. An even number (including zero) means a reinforcing loop; an odd number means a balancing one. It's a quick check that works for any loop your professor draws.
Read the graphs, don't just copy them
Environmental science is full of data: carbon dioxide over time, population growth, temperature records, species counts. When a graph appears on a slide, don't just sketch its shape. Write down:
- What's on each axis, with units.
- The trend in one sentence.
- Anything unusual, like a seasonal wiggle, a plateau or a sudden drop, and the reason given for it.
- The claim it supports. Why did the professor show this graph?
For your own plots, Graph (mm) paper keeps data points accurate. Semi-Log paper, with a log scale on one axis, is useful for growth data: exponential growth shows up as a straight line on it, which makes doubling easy to spot. See log graph paper on iPad for more.
If your professor shares slides as a PDF, import them into your notebook and write right on the graphs. See how to annotate lecture slides on iPad.
Field trips and field labs
Many environmental science courses get you outside: a stream survey, a forest plot, a visit to a water treatment plant or a landfill. Field notes are only useful if they record things you can't reconstruct later.
For every site, write down:
- Date, time and location, as specific as you can.
- Conditions, like weather, recent rain or water level.
- What you measured, how, and the readings, with units.
- A quick sketch map of the site with north marked and where each sample came from.
- Observations and questions. What surprised you? What would you test next?
Photos help a lot. In Scribba, you can add a photo from the camera right onto the page and label it in your handwriting. If you record a guide's talk at a site, the recording keeps going when the iPad's screen locks, so you can put it away while you walk.
For structured labs where you collect data you'll analyze later, Lab Notebook paper has TITLE, PROJECT and PAGE fields over a grid, with SIGNATURE and DATE fields at the bottom. Our guide to keeping a lab notebook on iPad covers the habits.
Keep case studies and policy in one place
Courses also cover real cases, like a river cleanup, a fishery collapse or a pollution law, and these come back as essay questions. Give each case its own page with the same headings: the problem, the causes, who was affected, what was done and what happened next. A consistent layout lets you compare cases quickly before an exam.
If you take several science classes, Scribba can keep up to six notebooks open as tabs, so your environmental science notebook can sit next to biology or chemistry while you cross-reference.
Frequently asked questions
What's the best way to memorize the nutrient cycles?
Draw them all with the same skeleton of reservoirs and processes, then redraw each one from memory and check it. Comparing the cycles side by side helps more than learning them one at a time.
Can I take field notes on an iPad outdoors?
Yes. Your notebooks are stored on the iPad, so you can write and add photos at a field site. A case and a strap make it easier to carry.
What paper should I use for environmental science?
Dot Grid or ruled paper for lectures, Graph (mm) for plotting data, and Lab Notebook paper for field and lab data. You can change the paper of any page from the page sidebar.