Vocabulary 1
This general term describes what happens when any harmful substances are released into the environment.
What is pollution?
This is what we call it when we use resources that can recover and renew themselves over time.
What is sustainability?
The general word we use to describe what happens when a once natural habitat gets built up with structures.
What is development?
When areas that were once able to sustain plant life and farming lose their moisture and nutrients and become like deserts
What is desertification?
When raw materials, like metals and plastics, are brought up from below the Earth’s surface.
What is mining?
Way too many people!
what is over-population?
This term describes how earth’s population increased slowly for many eons, and then quickly and drastically increased.
What is exponential growth?
The land behind Bogview is an example of these kinds of lands. Filling them up with dirt or cement destroys their ecosystem.
what are wetlands?
The most common cause of degraded LAND in North America
What is agriculture
When the top layer of dirt gets removed because of mining, the soil below has a higher rate of this
What is erosion?
Three ways to practice water conservation at home.
What are taking shorter showers, watering our lawns less often, turning off the faucet quickly (tooth brushing, hand washing), re-using dirty water to water plants, not using throw away water bottles
That sewer drain is obviously going right into the river and causing pollution. This is the kind of “source” the drain is
What is “point source”
True or false: Pollution only affects our air
False: It affects air, water and land
VOCAB WORD: When many acres of trees are cut down to make space for farming or other development
What is deforestation?
This is how mining causes pollution
When chemicals and materials used for mining get washed away into the land and water systems.
This type of pollution happens when factories use water to cool down their machinery and then release that heated, polluted water into the environment
What is thermal pollution?
These can actually be seen as dark smoke, they are loaded with chemicals, and usually contain lots of CO2 (carbon dioxide)
What are emissions?
Soaking up water from storms which protects us from flooding, and trapping pollutants before they reach waterways
Two examples of wetland benefits
When plant roots can’t hold down soil resulting in soil run off (John should get this one right away!)
What is erosion
This very important gas, found in the Stratosphere, protects us from the sun’s rays
What is ozone?
It’s hard to tell what exact source it is that caused all this air pollution in LA, so we call it the
What is “non-point source”
VOCAB WORD: This is what we call all the resources that occur in nature like food and water that support humans and animals.
What are natural resources?
DOUBLE X-TRA CREDIT! If farmers plant the same crop over and over again, then the soil loses these important elements and can become useless for farming.
What are nutrients?
This is what pollution is doing to our ozone layer
What is causing holes
When rain or any precipitation is more acidic than normal - Rivers demonstrated this with his science fair project
What is acid rain?
These three types of human activity have the most impact on land (check the category titles for a clue!)
What are agriculture, development, and mining?