All Vocab

Question 1

Sustainability

Answer 1

the ability to be sustained, supported, upheld, or confirmed. 2. Environmental Science. the quality of not being harmful to the environment or depleting natural resources, and thereby supporting long-term ecological balance: The committee is developing sustainability standards for products that use energy.

Question 2

Ecosystem

Answer 2

a biological community of interacting organisms and their physical environment.

Question 3

Species

Answer 3

a group of living organisms consisting of similar individuals capable of exchanging genes or interbreeding.

Question 4

Ecology

Answer 4

the branch of biology that deals with the relations of organisms to one another and to their physical surroundings.

Question 5

Degrading natural capital

Answer 5

Natural Capital can be defined as the world’s stocks of natural assets which include geology, soil, air, water and all living things. It is from this Natural Capital that humans derive a wide range of services, often called ecosystem services, which make human life possible.

Question 6

Tragedy of the commons

Answer 6

The tragedy of the commons is an economic theory of a situation within a shared-resource system where individual users acting independently according to their own self-interest behave contrary to the common good of all users by depleting that resource through their collective action.

Question 7

I = P x A x T

Answer 7

I = PAT is the lettering of a formula put forward to describe the impact of human activity on the environment. In words: Human Impact on the environment equals the product of Population, Affluence, and Technology.

Question 8

Agricultural revolution

Answer 8

The Agricultural Revolution was a period of technological improvement and increased crop productivity that occurred during the 18th and early 19th centuries in Europe. In this lesson, learn the timeline, causes, effects and major inventions that spurred this shift in production.

Question 9

Industrial revolution

Answer 9

The Industrial Revolution is the name given the movement in which machines changed people’s way of life as well as their methods of manufacture. About the time of the American Revolution, the people of England began to use machines to make cloth and steam engines to run the machines.

Question 10

Technological revolution

Answer 10

Technological revolution is, in general, a relatively short period in history when one technology (or better a set of technologies) is replaced by another technology (or by the set of technologies).

Question 11

Exponential growth

Answer 11

growth whose rate becomes ever more rapid in proportion to the growing total number or size.

Question 12

Ecological footprint

Answer 12

the impact of a person or community on the environment, expressed as the amount of land required to sustain their use of natural resources.

Question 13

Ways to slow population growth

Answer 13

-

Question 14

Hypothesis

Answer 14

a supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation.

Question 15

Theory

Answer 15

a supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something, especially one based on general principles independent of the thing to be explained.

Question 16

Order of applying scientific process

Answer 16

http://www.cdn.sciencebuddies.org/Files/5084/7/2013-updated_scientific-method-steps_v6_noheader.png

Question 17

Phosphorus cycle

Answer 17

The phosphorus cycle is the biogeochemical cycle that describes the movement of phosphorus through the lithosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere.

Question 18

Nitrogen cycle

Answer 18

The nitrogen cycle is the biogeochemical cycle by which nitrogen is converted into various chemical forms as it circulates among the atmosphere and terrestrial and marine ecosystems. The conversion of nitrogen can be carried out through both biological and physical processes.

Question 19

Nitrogen cycle

Answer 19

The nitrogen cycle is the biogeochemical cycle by which nitrogen is converted into various chemical forms as it circulates among the atmosphere and terrestrial and marine ecosystems. The conversion of nitrogen can be carried out through both biological and physical processes

Question 20

Carbon cycle

Answer 20

the series of processes by which carbon compounds are interconverted in the environment, chiefly involving the incorporation of carbon dioxide into living tissue by photosynthesis and its return to the atmosphere through respiration, the decay of dead organisms, and the burning of fossil fuels.

Question 21

Hydrologic cycle

Answer 21

The hydrologic cycle begins with the evaporation of water from the surface of the ocean. As moist air is lifted, it cools and water vapor condenses to form clouds. Moisture is transported around the globe until it returns to the surface as precipitation.

Question 22

Natural selection

Answer 22

the process whereby organisms better adapted to their environment tend to survive and produce more offspring. The theory of its action was first fully expounded by Charles Darwin and is now believed to be the main process that brings about evolution.

Question 23

Evolution

Answer 23

the process by which different kinds of living organisms are thought to have developed and diversified from earlier forms during the history of the earth.
synonyms:

Question 24

Reproductive capacity of species

Answer 24

A population’s reproductive capacity, or biotic potential, is the theoretical number of offspring that could be produced.

Question 25

Mutations

Answer 25

the changing of the structure of a gene, resulting in a variant form that may be transmitted to subsequent generations, caused by the alteration of single base units in DNA, or the deletion, insertion, or rearrangement of larger sections of genes or chromosomes.

Question 26

Adaptations

Answer 26

a change or the process of change by which an organism or species becomes better suited to its environment.

Question 27

Fitness

Answer 27

Biological fitness, also called Darwinian fitness, means the ability to survive to reproductive age, find a mate, and produce offspring. Basically, the more offspring an organism produces during its lifetime, the greater its biological fitness.

Question 28

Speciation

Answer 28

the formation of new and distinct species in the course of evolution

Question 29

Reproductive isolation

Answer 29

The mechanisms of reproductive isolation are a collection of evolutionary mechanisms, behaviors and physiological processes critical for speciation. They prevent members of different species from producing offspring, or ensure that any offspring are sterile.

Question 30

Geographic isolation

Answer 30

Geographic isolation is a term that refers to a population of animals, plants, or other organisms that are separated from exchanging genetic material with other organisms of the same species. Typically geographic isolation is the result of an

Question 31

Coevolution

Answer 31

the influence of closely associated species on each other in their evolution.

Question 32

Resource partitioning

Answer 32

Resource partitioning is the process whereby similar species exploit the limited resources in an ecological area without one species driving the others into extinction. Through natural selection, each species adopts a pattern of resource usage that isn’t competitive.

Question 33

Commensalism

Answer 33

Commensalism, in biology, a relationship between individuals of two species in which one species obtains food or other benefits from the other without either harming or benefiting the latter.

Question 34

Mutualism

Answer 34

symbiosis that is beneficial to both organisms involved.

Question 35

Parasitism

Answer 35

In biology/ecology, parasitism is a non-mutual symbiotic relationship between species, where one species, the parasite, benefits at the expense of the other, the host. Traditionally parasite (in biological usage) referred primarily to organisms visible to the naked eye, or macroparasites (such as helminths).

Question 36

Primary succession

Answer 36

Primary succession is one of two types of biological and ecological succession of plant life, occurring in an environment in which new substrate devoid of vegetation and other organisms usually lacking soil, such as a lava flow or area left from retreated glacier, is deposited.

Question 37

Secondary succession

Answer 37

Secondary succession is the series of community changes which take place on a previously colonized, but disturbed or damaged habitat. Examples include areas which have been cleared of existing vegetation (such as after tree-felling in a woodland) and destructive events such as fires.

Question 38

High quality energy

Answer 38

High quality energy is organized or concentrated to perform useful work. Low-quality energy is dispersed and disorganized and has little ability to do work. Entropy is a measure of the disorder of energy. The more disorder the less useful it is.

Question 39

Low quality energy

Answer 39

High quality energy is organized or concentrated to perform useful work. Low-quality energy is dispersed and disorganized and has little ability to do work. Entropy is a measure of the disorder of energy. The more disorder the less useful it is

Question 40

2nd law of thermodynamics

Answer 40

the branch of physical science that deals with the relations between heat and other forms of energy (such as mechanical, electrical, or chemical energy), and, by extension, of the relationships between all forms of energy.

Question 41

Kinetic energy

Answer 41

energy that a body possesses by virtue of being in motion.

Question 42

Potential energy

Answer 42

the energy possessed by a body by virtue of its position relative to others, stresses within itself, electric charge, and other factors.

Question 43

Three processes life on earth depends on

Answer 43

1) Ability to reproduce.
2) Reacts to Stimuli
3) Ingest Nutrients for sustenance

Question 44

Population

Answer 44

all the inhabitants of a particular town, area, or country