Pieces of a Puzzle:

Constitute: to set up, establish. to make up, form, compose. From the Latin, com, together, and statuere, to set.

Reference: Webster's New Universal Unabridged Dictionary.

Constitutes, constituent parts, form, compose...everything except quarks seems to be made up of other, smaller parts. Even though the world seems to be getting smaller as travel and communication get easier, the world is still a very complicated, diverse place. Humans have tended to break large, complicated systems down into their component parts in order to understand them better. This has worked well for westrern science and technology, but in many cases the modern world seems to have lost sight of "the big picture".

It's really about balance - you need to understand the parts in order to understand the whole. When you study the parts, however, you musn't forget about the system of which they are a part. It may hep to understand how our modern society works to look at some of the different ways in which it can be broken into parts. Here are some to explore:

• Cultural and Ethnic Components of the United States
• Ethnic foods & recipes - a list not limited to American ethnic groups - a cultural perspective
• Governmental Components
• Cities
• States
• More States, in fact a list of lists at the Library of Congress


• Bioregional Components

Many people are concerned about the population explosion and whether or not the human race is running out of resources. Some of these people question whether it is wise for us to ship resources and plants and animals around the world in order to support our consumer society. They feel that we are using resources in an unsustainable way, and that it would be much less destructive to the ecosystem to use those resources which occur naturally within one's own regional biological community.
It may be true that technology continues to "shrink" the globe, but can we continue to act as if it is a toy ball with which we can do what we like? Perhaps we should try to "stay inside" our bioregions as much as possible, and to seek harmony there with natural systems. American bioregions could be described as:
• Northeast Temperate Forest
• Boreal Forest
• Northwest Rainforest
• Southern California Mediterranean
• Southwest Arid
• Southeastern Forests
• Great Plains
• Rocky Mountains
• Gulf Coast Semi-tropical
• Everglades tropical

Constituent parts of the Ecosystem.

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