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Chapter 1 and 2 Review Sheet AP Environmental Science 2014
1. Define environment and environmental science.
2. Explain what a system is and explain how that applies to an ecosystem and what is required to
make up an ecosystem.
3. How do environmentalism and environmental studies differ?
4. Give some examples of ways in which humans have altered their environment.
5. Explain what ecosystem services are and give some examples.
6. Explain what is meant by environmental indicators and specify the “five key indicators” outlined
by your book.
7. Briefly describe each of the “five key indicators”
8. List and describe the three sub-types of biological diversity.
9. How are species richness and biodiversity different?
10. Describe how background extinction rates differ from present extinction rates.
11. What has happened to world grain production over the last three decades?
12. Why is it important to understand the anthropogenic nature of greenhouse gas increase?
13. What other factor must be considered when predicting the effects that the human population is
having on the planet?
14. Explain development.
15. What is sustainability and sustainable development? Give three requirements of living
sustainably.
16. How are human needs and wants in conflict?
17. Describe an ecological footprint and explain how it differs based on lifestyle.
18. Explain the scientific method and why it has such strong credibility.
19. Use the following vocabulary list and understand that you can be asked to define any of them,
or identify any of them in a given situation.
Hypothesis
Null Hypothesis
Replication
Sample Size
Accuracy
Precision
Uncertainty
Inductive Reasoning
Deductive Reasoning
Critical thinking
Theory
Natural Law
Control Group
Experimental Controls
Independent Variable
Dependent Variable
Natural Experiment
Placebo Effect
Baseline Data
Subjectivity
Objectivity
20. Explain what environmental justice is.
Chapter 2
21. Explain the relationship between mass and matter.
22. Explain how atoms, elements, molecules, and compounds are related to each other.
23. Describe how the periodic table is organized.
24. Use the periodic table to identify each of the following for the first 20 elements; atomic number,
mass number, electron configuration before and after ionization, likelihood of bonding ionically
or covalently, likelihood of creating polar or non polar covalent bonds with other given
elements.
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Define isotopes and how they relate to radioactive decay.
Explain the half-life concept.
How are covalent, ionic, and hydrogen bonds different?
Explain what is necessary to have a polar molecule.
Explain the emergent properties of water that result from its polar nature.
Explain acids and bases and describe what the pH system shows and how it is related to pOH.
What are chemical reactions.
Explain what is meant by the law of conservation of mass and the law of conservation of energy.
How do organic and inorganic molecules differ.
Explain what the similarities and differences are among proteins, nucleic acids, lipids, and
carbohydrates.
Give a basic description of cells and their structure.
Explain energy.
What is electromagnetic radiation, the electromagnetic spectrum, and photons.
Define the difference between Energy and Power.
What do the joule, calorie, Calorie, Btu, and kWh have in common and how do they differ?
Describe the differences between potential, kinetic, and chemical energy.
What is temperature?
Describe the first and second laws of thermodynamics.
Now give the three laws of thermodynamics in poker terms.
Explain energy efficiency, inputs, and outputs.
Describe energy quality.
What is entropy and how does it drive evolution.
How do energy conversions underlie all ecological processes and what is all energy headed
toward?
How do open and closed systems differ?
Explain a steady state system.
What is feedback and how do positive and negative feedback loops differ.
Give examples of each of the above.
Describe what an adaptive management plan is.
What is an ecosystem and how large are they
Explain ecosystem processes and how an ecosystem fits our previous definitions of systems.
How do the processes of photosynthesis and respiration tie together ecosystems and define
roles?
How are food chains and food webs different in their strengths and weaknesses?
List and describe player roles that are established by food chains and food webs?
Explain in detail, the difference between GPP and NPP and their effect on food chain diversity
and stability.
Name and describe the most productive and least productive ecosystems and why those
ecosystems are productive.
Explain Trophic Pyramids, what they are valuable for and how standing crop, biomass and
ecological efficiency play into them.
61. Explain what is meant by the biosphere being a closed system for matter and what that means
for ecosystems using nutrient cycles.
62. What is a geochemical cycle?
63. Draw and label a water cycle.
64. Draw and label a carbon cycle.
65. Don’t worry about phosphorous and nitrogen cycles as drawings, but be able to define and use
Macronutrients, limiting nutrients, nitrogen fixation, leaching, assimilation, ammonification,
nitrification, and denitrification effectively in sentences.
66. Explain what disturbances are and how they affect ecosystems. How would they be used in
restoration ecology?
67. Explain what a watershed is and what they dictate about water quality.
68. Explain Ecosystem resistance and resilience.
69. Define the intermediate disturbance hypothesis.
70. What are ecosystem services?
71. How are instrumental and intrinsic value related.
72. Describe regulating service, support systems, resilience, cultural services.
73. What is intrinsic value?
Chapter 4
74. Describe the stratification to the atmosphere and the environmental services each layer
provides us.
75. How does the unequal heating of the earth affect its atmospheric behaviors.
76. Explain the properties of air and how they drive convection currents.
77. What are albedo, Hadley cells, intertropical convergence, and polar cells.
78. Describe the coriolis effect (simply).
79. Explain what causes the earth’s seasons.
80. Explain what drives the different ocean currents, and what outcomes they cause (physical).
81. Explain what rain shadows are and how they occur.
82. Define biomes and describe what two factors drive biome development.
83. For each of the following biomes, list some defining factors and terms that are specifically
related to them.
Tundra
Temperate Seasonal Forest
Temperate Grassland/Cold Desert
Subtropical Desert
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Boreal Forest
Temperate Rainforest
Woodland/Shrubland
Tropical Rainforest
Tropical Seasonal Forest/Savanna
What are aquatic biomes categorized by?
How do streams/rivers, Lakes/ponds, Wetlands differ?
In lakes, what are the different areas and what defines each?
What are the ecosystem services of freshwater wetlands?
Explain what defines salt marshes, mangrove swamps, intertidal zones, and coral reefs.
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What do all of the biomes of 36 have in common.
Describe the open ocean and define the life zones within it.
What is chemosynthesis.
Read and understand the coffee article at the end of chapter 4.
The Evolution article is fair game as well.
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Name and describe each of the three types of biodiversity.
Explain how each of the types of biodiversity differs in influence.
Explain how species diversity, species richness, and biodiversity differ.
What is phylogeny and what determines it?
Define evolution and explain how microevolution and macroevolution differ.
What does genetic diversity refer to within a species?
What is a gene and how are genotypes and phenotypes different?
Explain how mutations and recombination affect genetic diversity.
Which of the #7 terms does evolution act on? Explain.
Explain what artificial selection is and how it helps explain natural selection.
Explain the key ideas of Darwin’s theory of natural selection.
What is fitness and how do adaptations affect an organism’s fitness.
How do Genetic drift, the founder effect, and the bottleneck effect influence population
genetics and evolution?
What is the difference between Allopatric and Sympatric speciation and what are some of the
key causes of each?
What is required for evolution to occur?
How fast does evolution occur?
How does rate of environmental change, genetic variation, population size, and generation time
affect the ability of a species to adapt?
Explain how genetic engineering and genetically modified organisms are different from
traditional artificial selection.
How do fundamental and realized niche compare?
What is a tolerance curve and how does it relate to distribution?
Explain the difference between niche specialists and generalists and which ones are most likely
to be invasive and resilient.
Explain what fossils are and why the fossil record is likely to remain incomplete.
What is a mass extinction and how does current human activity relate?
Chapter 6
Explain the levels of ecological organization, be sure to define each level.
What is population ecology and how is it “dynamic”.
Describe how population size, density, distribution, age structure, and sex ratio differ and affect
a population.
Explain the difference between density dependent and density independent factors.
What are limiting resources and carrying capacity?
Explain the exponential growth model and growth rate, and intrinsic growth rate.
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What is a logistic growth model and an s shaped curve? What does it say about a population?
Explain population oscillations and how overshoot and die-offs feed into them.\
How do K and R selected species differ in their reproduction?
What is a survivorship curve and how do type 1, 2, and 3 species differ?
Give examples of species that would fit R selected, K selected, Type 1, Type 2, and Type 3
species.
What are metapopulations and how do corridors relate to them?
Explain Community Ecology and define the five types of symbiosis, be sure to include the +relationships that exist in all.
What are competitive exclusion and resource partitioning?
Explain if herbivory better fits predation or parasitism.
What are pathogens and parasitoids?
What does symbiosis mean?
Describe the importance of keystone species, predator mediated competition, and ecosystem
engineers in community ecology.
Explain ecological succession, how are primary and secondary succession different?
What are pioneer species and climax communities?
Explain aquatic succession stages.
How do latitude, time, and habitat size affect species richness?
How does distance from a mainland and habitat size affect the theory of island biogeography?
Chapter 7
Explain carrying capacity and limiting factors.
What did Malthus notice?
What is the science of studying population trends?
Define all of the factors that affect changes in population size.
Explain fertility. Define TFR and explain what replacement level fertility rate is.
How do fertility rate of developed and developing countries compare.
Explain life expectancy and the factors that affect it.
How do infant and child mortality compare in developed and developing countries.
Describe age structure diagrams and how they differ with development levels of countries.
How do age structure diagrams help predict population growth and explain population
momentum?
Explain the effects that migration can have on a country.
Explain the theory of demographic transition and the 4 phases it defines.
Explain family planning and how it affects population growth.
How do Population and consumption come together to affect resource pressure?
Define affluence and how it typically affects ecological footprint.
Give the IPAT Equation and explain its meaning.
Explain the different scopes of ecological impacts.
Explain what an urban area is and how the sustainability of urban living compares to the
sustainability of rural living.
What is happening to the percentage of individuals who live in urban areas?
66. What are the effects of GDP Growth and what is GDP?
67. What were the conclusions of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment?
68. What is sustainable development and is it really possible.
Chapter 10
1. Explain the tragedy of the commons.
2. What is an externality and why is the tragedy of the commons essentially caused by
externalities?
3. What is optimal pollution?
4. Explain what maximum sustainable yield is and what resources it applies to.
5. Name and describe the six International Categories of Public Lands.
6. Name and describe the five National Classifications of Land.
7. Explain what the Resource Conservation Ethic is.
8. What percentage of public lands are federally owned and where are they concentrated and
why?
9. What are the four agencies that manage 95% of all public lands?
10. What are rangelands, what laws relate most closely to them and how profitable are they for the
Government?
11. What are forests and how profitable are national forests for the government?
12. Your book only lists two main forest management/harvesting practices…I want to know all five
with a description of the positives and negatives of each.
13. What characteristics does ecologically sustainable forestry have to have…What practices have
we addressed that have these characteristics?
14. Be able to determine board foot volumes and management decisions when given scenarios.
15. What is forest basal area and a site index.
16. What would determine the site index for a species in an area?
17. How do tree plantations fair when looked at for their ecological value?
18. What is the difference between a prescribed burn and a wildfire in both cause and effect?
19. What is a National Park, how are they managed and why?
20. What is a wildlife refuge, how are they managed, and why?
21. What is a wilderness area, how are they managed and why?
22. The president has proposed moving the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from this classification to
a Wilderness Area…Why?
23. What is NEPA, how is it related to an EIS, and how have EIS’s become less effective with
technology’s advance.
24. What is an environmental mitigation plan and what causes the need for one.
25. Explain the Endangered Species Act and argue for or against it.
26. Explain the difference between rural, exurban, suburban, and urban.
27. How does the economic development of a country affect each of the above.
28. What is urban sprawl and what positive feedback loop reinforces it?
29. How do living costs affect urban sprawl and urban blight, and how does this feed back into
government services?
30. Explain the Highway trust fund and induced demand.
31. How does zoning control development and how is multi-use zoning unique?
32. Explain the ten basic principles of smart growth and be familiar with unique vocabulary attached
to each one.
33. How does Prairie Crossing satisfy the smart growth goals?
Chapter 11
34. What changes in human behavior have led to the current state of global overpopulation?
35. Define and relate the terms undernutrition, malnutrition, food security, food insecurity, famine,
anemia, and overnutrition.
36. Be able to relate each of the above to the development level and socioeconomic wealth of
countries.
37. How does meat affect the human diet and how does meat as a portion of the human diet affect
the environment?
38. Explain the reasons for undernutrition and malnutrition.
39. Explain the two graphs on page 286 and why the bottom one is probably overly optimistic.
40. Explain how the green revolution started and how it improved caloric availability.
41. What is industrial agriculture or agribusiness?
42. Explain what an energy subsidy is and what drives up the energy subsidy of a food vs. what
drives down the energy subsidy of a food.
43. How did fertilizer, mechanization, irrigation, and pesticides each feed into the green revolution
and what negatives does each one potentially cause
44. Compare the use of organic vs. synthetic fertilizers.
45. What is monocropping and what leads to it?
46. Why are pesticides more necessary with monocropping?
47. Define each of the following: Pesticides, insecticides, herbicides, broad spectrum, persistent,
bioaccumulation, nonpersistent, resistant, and pesticide treadmill.
48. Explain the pesticide treadmill as a process.
49. Explain genetic engineering and the pros and cons of it.
50. Explain conventional agriculture. When do traditional farming practices tend to become cost
competitive?
51. What is shifting agriculture and how is it negative?
52. Explain sustainable agriculture and the following terms related to it: intercropping, crop
rotation, agroforestry, and contour plowing.
53. Explain what no till agriculture is and what benefits it brings.
54. Explain IPM as a strategy and how it affects chemical use and yield.
55. How is this more sensible evolutionarily?
56. Explain organic agriculture and what benefits it brings.
57. What is a CAFO and what benefits and drawbacks are related to it?
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What are the down sides of more sustainable meat farming practices?
What is a fishery and what constitutes a fishery collapse?
What is bycatch?
Explain the advantages and disadvantages of ITQs, be sure to define them.
Define aquaculture.
Define nonrenewable energy and explain how fossil fuel and nuclear fuel are different.
How are commercial energy and subsistence energy sources different?
What percentage of the world’s energy use is nuclear, what percentage is renewable and what
is left?
Identify and explain the trends that are shown on figure 12.3
Be able to read and interpret the charts on page 319 and identify the most common energy
sources used by the US and the most consumptive activities of the US
Explain all of the ways in which energy experiences inefficiencies between being generated and
being used
When would a suburban be more efficient than a prius.
Explain what has happened to US gas mileage over time.
Explain how fossil fuels are used to create electricity and be sure to define all of the vocabulary
related to the process.
What is the efficiency of a normal generation station? How does that compare to the efficiency
of a combined cycle generator?
What does capacity and capacity factor mean and how do they help explain the value of
different energy sources?
Name and describe each of the forms of fossil fuels, what each is made from, and what the
strengths and weaknesses of each are.
What are the types of coal and how are they different?
Explain what petroleum and crude oil are and how they are changes into their separate parts.
Explain what oil sands and bitumen are and how they are treated to give petroleum.
Look at the comparison of us energy intensity compared to per capita use. Describe why this is
occurring.
Explain the Hubbert Curve and how it predicts peak oil.
Why has the prediction of peak oil always been incorrect
Explain nuclear fission.
How is nuclear fission within a reactor different from nuclear fission caused by a bomb.
What would have to be done to cause nuclear fuel to be bomb grade?
What are fuel rods and control rods and how are they used together to control nuclear
reaction?
What is a meltdown?
Name and describe the three types of radiadion, be sure to give the penetrative ability of each.
What is a curie and a bacquerel?
What is a decay series?
What is a half-life and how does it determine radioactive waste storage times?
How does a decay series screw up storage time calculations for nuclear waste?
91. Explain nuclear fusion.
92. Who cares about number 29 and why?
Achieving Energy Sustainability
93. What is renewable energy and how are potentially renewable, nondepletable, and renewable
related?
94. What percentage of global energy use is renewable, what about the united states?
95. What is the breakdown of that renewable energy for the world and for the US?
96. What does the US use higher percentages of than the rest of the world, what do we use less of?
97. What is energy conservation, why is it a big deal and how does a tiered rate system help achieve
it?
98. What is peak demand and when does it occur daily and annually?
99. Explain several facets of sustainable design and explain how each reduces energy need.
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How is all energy solar?
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Explain biomass. Name and describe the strengths and weaknesses of each of the
biofuel forms.
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How do modern and fossil carbon compare in their sources and environmental impact?
How does net removal of biomass affect the environment?
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Explain how hydroelectricity works, what is its strength and weakness?
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How are run of the river systems unique and what problems are associated with normal
hydroelectric that are not a problem with run of the river systems?
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Explain how tidal energy works.
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What are the ecological problems created by dams?
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How are passive and active solar energy different?
What were some passive solar energy designs?
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Name and describe a couple of active solar energy systems.
How can solar still be bad for the environment?
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How should solar be used to reduce environmental impact?
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What is geothermal energy?
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Explain what a ground source heat pump is.
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Explain how a wind turbine works.
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How is wind energy doing as a share of the renewables and how does the US use of
Wing look in comparison to the rest of the world’s?
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What are the benefits and drawbacks of wind turbines?
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What is a fuel cell and how does electrolysis work?
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What is the electrical grid?
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What is a smart grid?
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How do different energy forms use and work with the grid differently?
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How can you increase your energy conservation as a homeowner, community, country?
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How can you help increase the percentage of energy you get from renewables as a
homeowner, community, country?
Water Pollution Chapter 14
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Define Water pollution, what is the difference between point source and nonpoint source?
What is Wastewater and what is in it that causes concern?
Explain what oxygen demand is and how do oxygen demanding waste affect BOD?
What is BOD and how does eutrophication affect it?
Explain Oligotrophic and eutrophic water and how cultural eutrophication works.
Explain what an indicator species is and how that is related to our use of fecal coliform bacteria.
Why do we have waste water treatment and what things must it do to wastewater to be
effective?
How does a septic system work and how do septic tanks, leach fields, septage, and sludge fit
into this process?
Explain how a sewage treatment plant works. Be able to explain primary, secondary, and tertiary
treatment, and the purpose of each.
What happens to sewage treatment when there is a massive rain?
What are animal feedlot lagoons and how do they work?
How do lead, arsenic, and mercury each affect the ecosystem and what is their source. Why did I
group them together in this question?
What is acid deposition, what chemicals cause it and what is the source of these chemicals?
What are synthetic organic compounds, how long have they been around, and why does that
matter?
Define how each of the following are challenging water quality: Pesticides and inert ingredients,
pharmaceuticals and hormones, military compounds, and industrial compounds.
Look back at 15 and make sure you addressed specific examples of a source and negative of
each or do it now.
What is a PCB and PBDE’s.
What are the main sources of oil pollution in the environment?
How do you clean oil pollution from the ocean?
How does oil pollution and the cleanup affect wildlife?
Explain what solid waste pollution is and how one would go about cleaning it up.
Explain what sediment pollution is, what is its affect and how do you clean it up?
What is thermal pollution and how does it affect the ecosystem, what are its sources and what
are some solutions to fixing it?
What is thermal shock?
What is noise pollution and what does it affect?
Explain how the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Clean water act each improve water quality
and what type of water each one is aimed at.
How does water quality and the availability of quality water differ from developed to developing
nations?
Explain some alternative ways to improve water quality.
Air Pollution Chapter 15
What is air pollution?
30. Describe the source and the effect of each of the following air pollutants: Sulfur dioxide,
Nitrogen Oxides, Carbon Oxides, Particulate Matter, Photochemical Oxides, lead and other
Metals, and Volatile Organic Compounds.
31. What is particulate matter, what are the sizes and how does their threat change with size?
32. What is photochemical smog, what are its type and how are each of the types different?
33. Which metals pose a threat to the environments air quality and how?
34. What is the major source of volatile organic compounds and what is included in this group?
35. Explain what primary and secondary pollutants are and how they are different. Give examples of
primary pollutant to secondary pollutant change.
36. What is the difference between natural and anthropogenic emissions?
37. Name some emissions that are primarily from natural sources and some that are primarily from
anthropogenic sources.
38. Look at the graph on page 417 How have air pollutants been trending in recent decades, why,
and how do you think this compares to developing countries?
39. Explain the chemistry of smog formation, both natural and VOC
40. What is a thermal inversion and how does it affect pollution levels and why?
41. What is acid deposition, what causes it and what is its result?
42. Explain some methods of pollution control of sulfur, nitrogen, and particulate matter.
43. How does a baghouse filter work?
44. How does an electrostatic precipitator work?
45. How does a scrubber work?
46. Under the innovative pollution control section, page 424, how was sulfur brought under
control?
47. Give the chemical equation that breaks down and creates ozone naturally.
48. Give the chemical equation involving Cl that creates and breaks down ozone in the stratosphere
and explain how that difference leads to more UV light hitting the Earth’s surface.
49. What were the harmful anthropogenic molecules that were destroying the ozone?
50. How have humans addressed the depleted ozone situation?
51. How does indoor air quality differ between developed and developing nations.
52. Name the source of and damaged caused by each of the following indoor pollutants: asbestos,
carbon monoxide, radon, and VOC’s.
53. Why are indoor air pollutants often more problematic than outdoor air pollutants?
54. Explain what “sick building syndrome” is and what causes it.
55. Look at the diagram on the bottom of page 438 and describe its meaning.
56. What is waste and more particularly what is municipal solid waste and how does our throw
away society affect these waste amounts?
57. How has the amount of waste produces in the US trended over the last few decades?
58. How much trash does an individual generate on average?
59. Explain the waste stream, what is the composition of the US waste stream by percentage?
60. How would 100% composting efficiency affect the amount of remaining solid waste?
61. How would 100% recycling affect the amount of remaining solid waste?
62. What is e-waste and how is it both valuable and dangerous?
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Explain the three R’s
Why are the R’s in the order that they are and how does each one reduce the waste stream?
Explain source reduction and dematerialization.
How are closed and open loop recycling
Look at the graph on page 444, explain the trends that exist and propose reasons for these
trends.
How could composting affect the waste stream?
Explain the process of composting.
Explain how a landfill is built.
Explain what leachate is and how it is handled in a landfill.
Explain how methane is produced in a landfill and how it is mitigated.
What is a tipping fee?
What should be sought in choosing a site for a landfill?
Explain some problems associated with landfills.
Describe the process of incineration and explain what drawbacks are associated with it and what
additional benefits can be taken from it.
Explain what hazardous waste is and how it is different from regular solid municipal waste.
What is the RCRA and what impact does it have on the US?
What is the CERCLA, what is the other name it is known by, how is it funded, and how does it
affect the US?
Explain what Brownfields are and how they must be treated.
Explain what life cycle analysis is and why it is important.
Explain the logic of Integrated Waste Management.
Explain what cradle to cradle means and who is using it.