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Environmental Science Exam Study Guide
1. What are renewable and nonrenewable resources?
2. How did the agricultural revolution and the industrial revolution change human
culture and our environment?
3. Why is biodiversity important?
4. What is the “Tragedy of the Commons”?
5. What is the law of supply and demand?
6. What does it mean to have a sustainable world?
7. What is an ecological footprint? Which countries have large ecological
footprints?
8. Compare the living conditions in developed and developing nations.
9. What is a cost-benefit analysis? A risk assessment?
10. How do scientists use statistics and probability?
11. What are the parts and steps of a scientific experiment?
12. If a hypothesis cannot be tested due to practical or ethical considerations, how
might scientists draw a conclusion?
13. What habits of mind should scientists try to develop?
14. What types of models do scientists use to display data?
15. What are the steps of the decision-making model?
16. How might sample size affect results?
17. How can you determine the mean of a sample?
18. What are the various value systems people use when making decisions?
19. Differentiate between the structural and compositional layers of the geosphere.
20. Describe the action of Earth’s tectonic plates in terms of boundary events.
21. How do wind and water alter the surface of Earth?
22. What are the layers and chemical components of Earth’s atmosphere?
23. What conditions affect the transfer of heat through the atmosphere?
24. Describe the storage of energy in the layers of Earth’s oceans and how heat
storage affects Earth’s atmosphere.
25. Describe the effects of surface currents on climate.
26. What is the biosphere?
27. In what ways are Earth considered both a closed and open system?
28. What is an ecosystem? A community? A population? A species?
29. Where does the energy come from in most ecosystems?
30. What are biotic factors? Abiotic factors?
31. What is adaptation? Evolution? Natural selection?
32. What traits might make an organism better suited for its environment?
33. What is the carbon cycle? Nitrogen cycle? Phosphorous cycle?
34. How do animals and flowering plants depend on each other?
35. How do insects become resistant to pesticides?
36. Name two types of decomposers and describe what they do.
37. What is an angiosperm? A gymnosperm?
38. What is photosynthesis? Chemosynthesis? Cellular respiration? What types of
organisms perform these processes?
39. Describe the flow of energy through an ecosystem using a food chain, food web,
and energy pyramid.
40. What are fossil fuels? Give some examples.
41. How have humans affected the balance of carbon in the atmosphere?
42. How might fire help some forest communities?
43. What is primary succession? Secondary succession? Old-field succession? What
types of vegetation might you find in each situation?
44. What are producers and consumers?
45. What is a biome?
46. What biotic and abiotic factors might you find in the savanna? Desert?
Temperate grasslands? Taiga? Tundra? Chaparral? Temperate and tropical rain
forests? Temperate deciduous forest?
47. What is latitude? Altitude? How do they affect biomes?
48. How have human actions threatened the various biomes?
49. What is the single, most serious threat to all of our natural ecosystems?
50. What is eutrophication? Describe the process.
51. What is biomagnification? Explain how this phenomenon almost led to the
extinction of the bald eagle.
52. What is the difference between a biome and an ecosystem?
53. What are the three main properties of a population?
54. What is exponential population growth?
55. How can the reproductive behavior of individuals affect the growth rate of their
population?
56. How are population sizes in nature regulated?
57. What is the difference between niche and habitat?
58. What are the parts of a niche?
59. What are the five major types of interactions within species?
60. What is the difference between parasitism and predation?
61. How might symbiotic relationships evolve?
62. How has the size and growth rate of the human population changed in the last 200
years?
63. What four properties do scientists use to predict population sizes?
64. What predictions can be made about population trends based on age structure?
65. What are the four stages of demographic transition?
66. Why might different countries be at different stages of the demographic
transition?
67. What problems are caused by rapid population growth?
68. How do population growth problems in more-developed countries compare to
those in less-developed countries?
69. What strategies might countries use to reduce their population growth?
70. What projections have been made regarding worldwide population into the next
century?
71. What are the three levels of biodiversity?
72. How is biodiversity important to ecosystems and humans?
73. What might be the potential value of a single species?
74. What are endangered and threatened species?
75. How are species being threatened with extinction globally?
76. Which types of threats have the greatest impact on biodiversity?
77. What areas of the world have high levels of biodiversity and many threats to
species?
78. How does the amount of biodiversity in the United States compare to that of the
rest of the world?
79. What four types of efforts have been employed to save individual species?
80. What are the advantages of protecting entire ecosystems rather than individual
species?
81. What are the main provisions of the Endangered Species Act?
82. How can efforts to protect endangered species lead to controversy?
83. What worldwide cooperative efforts have been used to prevent extinctions?
84. How are Earth’s water resources distributed?
85. Why is fresh water one of Earth’s limited resources?
86. How is Earth’s surface water distributed?
87. What is the relationship between groundwater and surface water in a watershed?
88. How is water used globally?
89. How is water treated so it can be used for drinking?
90. How is water used in homes, industry, and agriculture?
91. How are dams and water diversion projects used to manage freshwater resources?
92. How can water be conserved?
93. How does point-source pollution compare to nonpoint-source pollution?
94. What are the types of water pollutants?
95. Why is groundwater pollution difficult to clean up?
96. What are the major sources of ocean pollution?
97. What is the effect of water pollution on ecosystems?
98. What are the sources of the five primary air pollutants?
99. What are the two major sources of air pollution in urban areas?
100.
How does smog form?
101.
How does a thermal inversion trap air pollution?
102.
What are the short- and long-term effects of air pollution on human
health?
103.
How can indoor air pollution be prevented?
104.
What human health problems are caused by noise pollution?
105.
How can energy waste due to light pollution be reduced?
106.
What are the causes of acid precipitation?
107.
How does acid precipitation affect plants, soils, and aquatic ecosystems?
108.
How does acid precipitation affect humans?
109.
How can countries work together to solve acid precipitation problems?
110.
What is the difference between weather and climate?
111.
What factors determine climate?
112.
Why do different parts of the Earth have different climates?
113.
What causes the seasons?
114.
How does the ozone layer shield the Earth from much of the sun’s harmful
radiation?
115.
How do chlorofluorocarbons damage the ozone layer?
116.
How does the ozone hole form?
117.
What are the damaging effects of ultraviolet radiation?
118.
Why is the threat to the ozone layer still continuing today?
119.
Why is Earth’s atmosphere like the glass in a greenhouse?
120.
Why is the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere increasing?
121.
Why might the average global temperature be increasing?
122.
How might an increase in Earth’s temperature affect us?
123.
In what ways can we improve the way we use land to maximize resource
sustainability?
124.
Which agricultural practices will have the most desirable production
effects?
125.
What effects do mining practices have on ecosystems?
126.
What factors influence the value of a fuel?
127.
How are fuels used to generate electricity in an electric power plant?
128.
How do patterns of energy production and usage in the United States
compare to those of the world?
129.
How do fossil fuels form?
130.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of fossil-fuel use?
131.
What factors influence predictions of fossil-fuel production?
132.
How does a nuclear power plant work?
133.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of using nuclear energy?
134.
What forms of renewable and alternative energy are available to us?
135.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of using the various forms of
renewable and alternative energy?
136.
What are the components of solid waste and how do they affect our
environment?
137.
What are the effects of pollution and biological hazards on human health?
138.
What effect can an individual have on determining environmental policy?