Chapter One: Environmental Problems, Their Causes, and Sustainability

Chapter One: Environmental Problems, Their Causes, and Sustainability Objectives 1ST Period Due 12/18/13 3rd Period Due 12/19/13 Please complete the following in the order as listed below. 1. Define exponential growth. Describe the connection between exponential growth and environmental problems.

2. Distinguish between solar capital and natural capital. Evaluate the significance of these forms of capital in the development of human societies.

3. Distinguish between living on principal and living on interest. Analyze which of these behaviors humans are currently illustrating. Evaluate the possibility of continuing to live in our current style.

4. Define globalization. What factors affect globalization? Summarize the advantages and disadvantages of globalization.

5. Distinguish between developed countries and developing countries. Describe changes in the wealth gap between these groups of countries.

6. Distinguish between the following terms: physically depleted and economically depleted resources; nonrenewable, renewable, and potentially renewable resources; reuse and recycle. Draw a depletion curve. Explain how recycling and reuse affect depletion time.

7. Define sustainable yield. Describe the relationship between sustainable yield and environmental degradation. Describe the tragedy of the commons. Summarize how most environmentalists alleviate this type of tragedy.

8. Distinguish between the following terms: point source of pollution and nonpoint source of pollution; persistent, nonpersistent, and nondegradable pollutants. Distinguish between pollution prevention and pollution cleanup. Evaluate the effectiveness of these two approaches in decreasing pollution.

9. Summarize underlying causes of environmental problems. Describe a simple model of relationships among population, resource use, technology, environmental degradation, and pollution. Evaluate which model is most useful to you. Assess which model would be most useful in explaining these relationships to young children and which more closely resembles reality.

10. Understand the cultural changes that have increased the human impact on the natural environment.

11. Summarize strategies humans can use to work closely with the earth.

Chapter Two: Science, Systems, Matter, and Energy Objectives

1. Describe how science works. Distinguish between frontier and consensus science. Summarize the limits of environmental science.

2. Define matter. Distinguish between forms of matter and quality of matter.

3. Define energy. Distinguish between forms of energy and quality of energy.

Ecosystems: What are they and how do they work? 1 4. Define and explain mathematical models and how they are useful in predicting the behavior of a complex system.

5. Describe synergistic interactions within a complex system.

6. Describe how the law of conservation of matter and the law of conservation of energy govern normal physical and chemical changes. Briefly describe the second law of energy (thermodynamics).

7. Define radioactivity. Distinguish between natural radioactivity, nuclear fission and nuclear fusion.

8. Define high-throughput economy. Explain where you would expect to see this type of economy.

9. Define low-throughput economy. Explain where you would expect to see this type of economy.

10. Compare the sustainability of the two different types of economies for future generations of people.

Chapter Three: Ecosystems: What Are They and How Do They Work? Objectives

1. Define ecology. List and distinguish among five levels of organization of matter that are the focus of the realm of ecology.

2. List the characteristics of life.

3. Distinguish among lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and ecosphere. Briefly describe how the sun, gravity, and nutrient cycles sustain life on Earth. Compare the flow of matter and the flow of energy through the biosphere.

4. Define soil horizon. Briefly describe six soil layers. Using Figure 4-25 on p. 73 in the text, compare soil profiles of five important soil types.

5. Describe a fertile soil. In doing so, be sure to refer to soil texture, porosity, loam, and acidity.

6. Distinguish between an open system and a closed system. Name and describe three types of biogeochemical cycles.

7. Define abiotic component of an ecosystem. List three important physical factors and three important chemical factors that have large effects on ecosystems.

8. Summarize the law of tolerance. Compare limiting factors in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.

9. Define biotic component of an ecosystem. Distinguish between producers and consumers. List and distinguish four types of consumers. Distinguish among scavengers, detritus feeders and decomposers. Distinguish between photosynthesizers and chemosynthesizers; aerobic respiration and anaerobic respiration.

10. Distinguish between food chains and food webs; grazing food web and detrital food web. Apply the second law of energy to food chains and pyramids of energy, which describe energy flow in ecosystems. Explain how there may be exceptions to pyramids of numbers and biomass, but not energy.

11. Evaluate which ecosystems show the highest average net primary productivity and which contribute most to global net primary productivity.

2 Instructor's Manual: Chapter 3 12. Briefly describe the historical development and distinguishing features of three approaches ecologists use to learn about ecosystems: field research, laboratory research, and systems analysis.

13. Define ecosystem service. List five examples of ecosystem services. Distinguish among three types of biodiversity. Briefly state two principles to sustain ecosystems.

Chapter Four: Evolution and Biodiversity Objectives

1. Briefly describe the evolution of life from chemical evolution to the development of eukaryotic cells.

2. Describe the tools available to researchers for learning the evolutionary history of life.

3. Briefly describe the theory of evolution, being sure to include the roles played by variation within the gene pool and natural selection, extinction, speciation, and adaptive radiation.

4. Define natural selection and the three conditions that are necessary for evolution of a population by natural selection. Summarize and address two common misconceptions about evolution.

5. Define coevolution.

6. Distinguish between a specialist and a generalist. Evaluate the conditions that favor these two approaches.

7. Define ecological niche. Distinguish between condition and resource; fundamental niche and realized niche. List the factors that determine the realized niche.

8. Define speciation and compare allopatric speciation with sympatric speciation. Indicate which of these mechanisms is more common.

9. Define extinction and distinguish between background extinction and mass extinction. Discuss the role of humans on the rate of extinction at present.

10. Discuss the pros and cons of artificial selection and genetic engineering. Consider the possible environmental impacts on resource use, pollution and environmental degradation.

11. Indicate what it is that has allowed humans to have such a profound influence on their environment.

Chapter Five: Climate and Terrestrial Biodiversity Objectives

1. Distinguish between weather and climate. Summarize how warm fronts, cold fronts, high-pressure air masses, and low-pressure air masses affect weather.

Ecosystems: What are they and how do they work? 3 2. Describe at least five different factors that contribute to global air-circulation patterns.

3. Describe how ocean currents generally redistribute heat. 00000

4. Define greenhouse effect. Name greenhouse gases. State the significance of the greenhouse effect.

5. Describe the general effects of the following microclimates: windward and leeward sides of a mountain, forests, cities.

6. Describe how climate affects the distribution of plant life on Earth. Draw connections between biomes and the following plants, which are particularly adapted for different biomes: succulent plants, broadleaf evergreen plants, broadleaf deciduous plants, coniferous evergreen plants.

7. Compare the climate and adaptations of plants and animals in deserts, grasslands, and forests. Describe the distinctive qualities of a chaparral ecosystem. Be sure to distinguish among the three major kinds of forests.

8. Compare the biodiversity and stratification in the three major kinds of forests.

9. Describe how a mountain ecosystem is like an "island of biodiversity."

Chapter Seven: Community Ecology Objectives

1. Describe the three characteristics that describe a biological community.

2. Distinguish among the following roles played by species and give one example of each: native species, nonnative species, indicator species, keystone species. Explain why these labels are important.

3. Distinguish among the following species interactions and give one example of each: interspecific competition, predation, and symbiosis. Distinguish between interference competition and exploitation competition. Summarize the competitive exclusion principle. List two strategies species use to reduce competition.

4. List two strategies that predators use to capture their prey. List at least five strategies that prey use to defend themselves against predators.

5. Distinguish among three forms of symbiotic relationships and give one example of each: parasitism, mutualism, and commensalism.

6. Define succession. Distinguish between primary and secondary succession. Describe how humans affect communities.

Chapter Eight: Population Ecology Objectives

1. Describe the various types of population distribution patterns that can occur in nature and comment on which is most common and why.

4 Instructor's Manual: Chapter 3 2. Define birth rate, death rate, immigration, and emigration. Write an equation to mathematically describe the relationship between these rates and the rate of population change.

3. Define limiting factor. Give an example of a resource that would be limiting in an ecosystem.

4. Define exponential growth.

5. Compare a J-shaped growth curve with a S-shaped growth curve and comment on the factors that produce the sigmoid (S-shaped) curve.

6. Define carrying capacity and explain what determines the carrying capacity of an ecosystem.

7. Explain density-dependent population controls and density-independent population controls.

8. List the four general types of population fluctuations in nature. Indicate which of these is most common.

9. Discuss the relationships between predators and prey and the possible interactions upon each other.

10. Define r-selected species and K-selected species and compare the two. Give an example for each type of species reproductive pattern.

11. Describe the three general types of survivorship curves in nature.

Chapter Nine: Applying Population Ecology: The Human Population and Its Impact Objectives

1. Define birth rate, death rate, emigration rate, and immigration rate. Write an equation to mathematically describe the relationship between these rates and the rate of population change.

2. Distinguish between replacement-level fertility and total fertility rate. Describe how total fertility rate affects population growth. List at least five factors that affect birth and fertility rates and five factors that affect death rate.

3. Summarize changes over time in the U.S. population growth rate. Give reasons for the high rate of teen pregnancy in the United States compared to the rate in other industrialized countries. Draw connections between population growth and environmental degradation in California.

4. Define infant mortality rate. Explain why it is considered a good indicator of quality of life.

5. Compare rates of population growth in developed countries and developing countries. Explain the differences you find.

6. Using population age structure diagrams, explain how the age structure of a country creates population growth momentum. Summarize problems associated with a baby boom and a declining population.

7. Summarize key factors used to influence population size: immigration policy, family planning, economic rewards and penalties, empowering women. Summarize the current attitudes toward immigration policy in the United States.

8. List the four stages of the demographic transition. List social, biological, political, and economic issues that can be addressed to help developing countries undergo a demographic transition. List three factors that may limit the effectiveness of a demographic transition in influencing population size.

Ecosystems: What are they and how do they work? 5 9. Compare and evaluate the population policies of India and China. Summarize what we have learned from decades of trying to influence human population growth. List the major goals of the UN Conference on Population and Development.

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