This article explores ways that people impact ecological systems and how those systems can influence people's daily lives. Students use newspaper articles and case studies of scientific research to link daily human life and disrupted ecological function. This activity prompts students to think about their relationships with the natural world, repositioning them from passive world observers to active questioners about how everyday life affects ecological function. This reformulation of student outlook is a vital forerunner to the thinking, questioning, and critical thinking required for the data-driven case study analysis in the rest of the author's advanced environmental science course. It brings tangible meaning to the key course concept that people impact natural systems and vice versa. Virtually every human story has a significant environmental connection. (Contains 2 figures and 2 online resources.)