Middle School Life Science Edition Fall 2012, Version 1.0

Plants & Our Environment Animals & Our Environment Cycles in Nature Life Around Us Grab Bag

Plants & Our Environment for 200 Deforestation and loss of plants in an ecosystem, reduces this process, which provides energy to an ecosystem.

Plants & Our Environment for 200 What is ‘photosynthesis’?

Plants & Our Environment for 400 Of the three major roles in the food web, plants serve as this.

Plants & Our Environment for 400 What are ‘producers’ (or ‘autotrophs’)?

Plants & Our Environment for 600 Making new paper from old paper through recycling helps preserve forests by reducing the number of these that need to be cut for wood to make paper.

Plants & Our Environment for 600 What are trees?

Plants & Our Environment for 800 The three major reactants and two major products from photosynthesis.

Plants & Our Environment for 800 What are water, carbon dioxide, and light as the reactants and oxygen and carbohydrates (or sugars or glucose) as the products?

Plants & Our Environment for 1000 This is the name of the process by which moisture is carried through plants from roots to small pores on the underside of leaves, changes to vapor and is released to the atmosphere.

Plants & Our Environment for 1000 What is ‘transpiration’?

Animals & Our Environment for 200 In an energy pyramid, less energy is available to higher orders of these, which include animals.

Animals & Our Environment for 200 What are consumers?

Animals & Our Environment for 400 This will happen to the population of an invasive species that is introduced into an ecosystem where it has no known predators.

Animals & Our Environment for 400 What is ‘increase’ or ‘take over’?

Animals & Our Environment for 600 There are five main needs of animals including air (or ‘gases”). Name the other four which are all affected when human beings encroach upon on animal habitats.

Animals & Our Environment for 600 What are food, water, shelter and open space?

Animals & Our Environment for 800 If a pesticide killed the grasshoppers, this animal in the food web below would be MOST affected next.

Animals & Our Environment for 800 What are ‘frogs’?

Animals & Our Environment for 1000 Restate the following: “Humans are causing a decline in blue crabs in the Chesapeake Bay ” using “phyla-speak” (a phylum is the taxonomic rank below “kingdom” and above “class”) by filling in the blanks in this statement: “A ________ is causing a decline in _____________ in the Chesapeake Bay.” (Remember, humans have a backbone and blue crabs are crustaceans; they have a hard exoskeleton.)

Animals & Our Environment for 1000 What is “Chordates are causing a decline in arthropods in the Chesapeake Bay”?

Cycles in Nature for 200 The cycle in nature that humans directly affect by burning fossil fuels and releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere..

Cycles in Nature for 200 What is the ‘carbon cycle’?

Cycles in Nature for 400 Chemical fertilizers contain a large amount of ammonium and nitrates. As a result, humans are directly affecting this cycle in nature with the use of chemical fertilizers.

Cycles in Nature for 400 What is the nitrogen cycle?

Cycles in Nature for 600 Global warming is melting polar ice caps and glaciers, which directly affects this cycle in nature.

Cycles in Nature for 600 What is the ‘Hydrologic Cycle’ or the ‘Water Cycle’?

Cycles in Nature for 800 Producers (plants) take CO2 from the atmosphere and convert it to this usable form in the energy pyramid (the primary usable form of energy that plants produce during photosynthesis).

Cycles in Nature for 800 What are ‘sugars’ (or ‘glucose’ or ‘carbohydrates’)?

Cycles in Nature for 1000 What it is called when two organisms of different species live and work together.

Cycles in Nature for 1000 What is ‘symbiosis’ (or in this case, a specific type of symbiosis called ‘mutualism’)?

Life Around Us for 200 A coral reef is an example of one of these – a community of organisms and the abiotic elements in their surroundings.

Life Around Us for 200 What is an ‘ecosystem’?

Life Around Us for 400 Loss of habitat increases this among populations within an ecosystem (it results when two or more organisms are seeking the same resource).

Life Around Us for 400 What is ‘competition’?

Life Around Us for 600 Introducing an invasive species into an ecosystem can affect the relationship in a food web among decomposers, consumers, and these.

Life Around Us for 600 What are producers?

Life Around Us for 800 Agricultural run-off of fertilizers into water ecosystems can cause this (it is the generation of large ‘blooms’ of algae which can in turn disrupt the normal functioning of the ecosystem).

Life Around Us for 800 What is ‘eutrophication’?

Life Around Us for 1000 By burning fossil fuels, humans add to the heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere which are called this.

Life Around Us for 1000 What are greenhouse gases?

Grab Bag for 200 According to the figure, this category of animals (birds, rodents or amphibians) has the largest percentage of species in the ‘Critically Endangered’ and ‘Endangered or Vulnerable’ categories combined.

Grab Bag for 200 What are amphibians (or Amphibia)?

Grab Bag for 400 Due primarily to humans’ effect on our ecosystems, experts estimate that this will happen to 27,000 species every year.

Grab Bag for 400 What is go extinct?

Grab Bag for 600 This term applies to an organism’s physical location and, most importantly, functional role (much like an occupation—what the organism specifically does) within an ecosystem.

Grab Bag for 600 What is a ‘niche’?

Grab Bag for 800 This biome is home to the largest terrestrial biodiversity. It is being destroyed in Latin America to make way for cattle ranching and farming.

Grab Bag for 800 What are forests or tropical forests?

Grab Bag for 1000 The marine biome is the largest and one of the most important on Earth, in part because it contains these organisms which take in large amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere and are the largest producer of oxygen.

Grab Bag for 1000 What is phytoplankton, plankton or algae?

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