Vocabulary

When beginning to incorporate environmental themes into a curriculum, teachers often encounter specialized language they are unfamiliar with. We include a brief glossary here as an aid to you in your endeavor to explore environmental concepts with your students. By providing you with this brief list, we also hope to acquaint you with concepts addressed in our program.

Throughout the manual you will come across occasional bold faced words in the chapter introductions. These are terms we have included in the vocabulary list and we consider it important for students to become familiar with them.

Teaching Ideas:

Draw the Meaning – Handout/Activity

Find the Meaning – Handout/Activity

Vocabulary List

Adaptation - a characteristic of a plant or animal that increases its chance for survival; for example, the movable toes of the woodpecker allow it to climb trees more easily, or the many eggs a frog lays at one time, offsets those eaten by animals.

Amphibian - any member of the class of cold-blooded vertebrate animals that lay eggs in water, hatch into larvae that breathe through gills, and then change into adults that breathe with lungs. Frogs, toads, salamanders and newts are all amphibians.

Biotic Community (see community)

Camouflage - pattern or coloration of an animal or plant that allows it to appear as part of its natural surroundings.

Carnivore - any animal that feeds primarily on the meat of other animals. Spiders, bobcats, mountain lions, are examples of carnivores.

Cold-Blooded (see Ectotherm)

Community - is made up of characteristic assemblages of interdependent plants and animals. Communities consist of many habitats that are shaped by a variety of physical variables that define which plants and animals live within each habitat.

Condensation - changing from a gas to a liquid state; for example, water vapor (clouds) cooling off and producing rain.

16 Conservation - the protection and wise use of our natural resources. Resources such as forests, soil, water, and wildlife are all part of our natural environment.

Consumer - an animal that eats other plants or animals to get its food energy. A consumer cannot produce all of its own food from inorganic sources.

Deciduous - a characteristic of those plants that lose all their leaves at the end of the Dry Season.

Decomposer - an organism that eats dead plants or animals, changing the material chemically so that it may be used again as the building blocks of new organisms. Some examples of decomposers are fungi and bacteria.

Diurnal - describes an animal that is active during the day and sleeps at night; for example, hawks, and people.

Ecology - the study of the relationships between living things and their environment. For example, an ecological study might compare the food needs of egrets and herons with how close their nests are to the Bolinas Lagoon, their source of food.

Ecosystem - a community of living things and the nonliving parts of the environment that they inhabit.

Ectotherm – “cold-blooded”, animals that derive their body temperature from their surroundings, such as amphibians and reptiles.

Endangered - the status of any plant or animal whose population has been reduced to the point that it is at risk of becoming extinct in the near future.

Environment - all the physical and biological factors that influence the life of an organism. This includes where it lives, what it eats, and what it needs for development and reproduction.

Estivation - dormancy in animals during a warm or dry season, for example, newts estivate underground during the summer.

Evaporation - changing from a liquid to a gas, for example, water evaporates from the oceans and may form clouds.

Evergreen - plants that keep some leaves through all the seasons. At Martin Griffin Preserve, Coast Redwoods, Bay, and Douglas Fir are evergreens.

Food Chain - the transfer of food energy through a series of plants and animals. For example, a green leaf is eaten by a caterpillar, then the caterpillar is eaten by a bird, and so forth.

17 Food Web - a type of three dimensional food chain in an ecosystem. There are many potential paths for the transfer of energy; from a variety of producers, to and among a variety of consumers. A food web illustrates how organisms are interrelated and interdependent.

Habitat - the physical environment where a plant or animal lives. For example, the habitat of a water strider is the surface of the water and the habitat of a millipede is the forest floor.

Herbivore - any animal that eats mostly plants or plant products. A deer is an herbivore, so is a butterfly.

Indigenous - describes a plant or animal which lives naturally in an area; a native.

Invertebrate - an animal that has no backbone, but uses some other form of support, such as an exoskeleton. Spiders, slugs, and insects are all invertebrates.

Lagoon - a shallow stretch of water which is partly or completely separated from the sea by a narrow strip of land.

Metamorphosis - a period of rapid change from larval to adult form. For example, a tadpole changes into a frog, or a caterpillar changes into a butterfly. There are several types of metamorphosis.

Migration - to move from one region to another with the change of the seasons. Migration may occur to avoid harsh winter conditions, to obtain food, or to move to mating grounds.

Niche - the special function or role of a species within its community. Nocturnal - describes an animal that is active at night and sleeps during the day. Owls and many mammals are nocturnal.

Omnivore - an animal that eats both plants and animals. Humans, coyotes, raccoons, some birds, and some insects are examples of omnivores.

Photosynthesis - the process by which green plants produce their own food. Chlorophyll, a pigment in green leaves, uses sunlight to form sugar from water and carbon dioxide in the air, giving off oxygen and water in the process. Plants that make their own food through photosynthesis are called producers.

Precipitation - water vapor which condenses and falls to the earth as rain or snow.

Predator - an animal that hunts other animals for food. Hawks and bobcats are examples of predators.

Preserve - a place where plants, animals and the earth are protected. See Sanctuary.

18 Prey - animals that are killed and eaten by predators. Producer - an organism that makes its own food using the energy from sunlight. Green plants are producers. Recycling – using materials again rather that discarding them. Reptiles - cold-blooded vertebrates, that are characterized by having tough exterior skin, often with scales. Eggs are laid on land, young and adults both breathe with lungs. Snakes, lizards, and turtles are all reptiles. Respiration - the process of breathing in animals and gas exchange in plants. Some animals such as mammals, respire or breathe through their lungs. Others, like salamanders, breathe through their skins. Most plants respire through pores called stomata. Sanctuary - a safe place, in this case, for plants and animals to live, Audubon Canyon Ranch provides a sanctuary for egrets and herons and other organisms. See Preserve. Scavenger - an organism that feeds on the remains of dead animals. A Turkey Vulture is a full time scavenger. Territory - an area where an animal lives, which it will defend against others of the same species.

Tides - the alternate rise and fall of the surface of the sea which occurs approximately twice a day and is caused by the pull of gravity from the moon and, to a lesser degree, the sun.

Torpor - a state of inactivity or dormancy. Fence lizards or hummingbirds may go into a state of torpor due to low temperatures.

Transpiration - the loss of water vapor through the pores or stomata of a plant's leaves.

Vertebrate - an animal having a backbone or vertebral column; fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals are all vertebrates. Water Cycle - the movement of water through evaporation from the oceans and earth's surface to the atmosphere, to condensing as clouds and then falling as precipitation on the land, and returning as run-off to the oceans.

19 Draw the Meaning

Choose a word from the Martin Griffin Preserve Vocabulary List, or a set of words from the word boxes below according to your teacher’s instructions. Find out as much as you can about the word or words (you will want to do library and/ or internet research). When you think you understand it, please draw a picture and write a sentence or two that represents the main idea(s). Your teacher may ask you to share your work with the class. Use the back of this page if you need more space for your drawing or explanation.

Name ______Date ______

Vocabulary word(s) ______

My picture represents ______because it shows ______

20

Name______Date______

Find the meaning of the following words:

Food chain Habitat Food web Community Environment Ecosystem Producer Niche Consumer Territory Indigenous Migration Herbivore Carnivore Omnivore Ecology Scavenger Conservation Decomposer Recycling Sanctuary Preserve Sanctuary Endangered Predator Recycling Prey

Water Cycle Nocturnal Evaporation Diurnal Condensation Precipitation

Endotherm Ectotherm Deciduous Evergreen

Hibernation Estivation Respiration Torpor Transpiration

Camouflage Tides Adaptation Lagoon Metamorphosis

Great Blue Heron Reptile Great Egret Amphibian

Vertebrate Invertebrate

21