Nature of Science
The first step in the scientific method, which usually involves asking "Why?" or "How?"
What is asking a question (or identifying the problem)?
The level of organization that includes all the organisms of a single species living together in the same area.
What is a population?
The property of water that allows insects to walk on the surface of a pond due to the strong attraction between water molecules.
What is cohesion (or surface tension)?
The two simple reactants that a plant must take in from the environment to perform photosynthesis.
What are carbon dioxide and water?
This organelle, found in both plant and animal cells, is responsible for producing proteins.
What is a ribosome?
In an experiment testing the effect of fertilizer on plant growth, this is the factor that the scientist measures or observes in response to the change.
What is the dependent variable?
The rule stating that only this percentage of energy is successfully transferred from one trophic level to the next.
What is the 10% rule?
This type of macromolecule is primarily used for long-term energy storage due to its numerous energy-rich C-H bonds and nonpolar, hydrophobic structure.
What are lipids (or fats/triglycerides)?
This organelle, known as the "powerhouse of the cell," is where the bulk of aerobic cellular respiration occurs.
What is the mitochondrion?
The thin, flexible barrier that surrounds the cell, controlling what enters and exits, which is a function directly related to its lipid and protein structure.
What is the cell membrane (or plasma membrane)?
Data described using numbers, like the mass of a sample or the temperature of a solution.
What is quantitative data?
Factors like predation, competition for food, and disease, which increase their effect as a population grows larger.
What are density-dependent factors?
Because of its high specific heat capacity, water helps maintain this stable internal condition in an organism, preventing rapid temperature swings.
What is homeostasis?
The six-carbon sugar molecule produced during photosynthesis that acts as the primary stored chemical energy source for both plants and animals.
What is glucose?
One key piece of evidence used to argue that viruses are not living, as they cannot reproduce or carry out metabolic functions without a ...
What is a virus requires a host cell (or is an obligate intracellular parasite)?
The group in an experiment that is kept under normal conditions and is used for comparison, receiving no change to the independent variable.
What is the control group?
The gradual process of change and recovery in an ecosystem following a major disturbance, like a forest fire or volcanic eruption.
What is ecological succession?
Carbohydrates store energy in the form of a polysaccharide called starch in plants and this highly branched polysaccharide in animals, mainly in the liver and muscles.
What is glycogen?
The three-letter molecule that is the immediate, usable form of energy produced by cellular respiration, powering all cell activities.
What is ATP (adenosine triphosphate)?
In a muscle cell, which requires a large amount of energy, this organelle would be especially numerous to support the cell's main function.
What is the mitochondrion?
An educated guess or testable statement about the relationship between the independent and dependent variables, often written using "If... then... because..."
What is a hypothesis?
Natural benefits like clean water, air purification, and pest control provided by Alabama's diverse ecosystems, supporting human life.
Natural benefits like clean water, air purification, and pest control provided by Alabama's diverse ecosystems, supporting human life.
This unique structural characteristic of the water molecule, caused by the unequal sharing of electrons, allows water to dissolve many substances and helps regulate body temperature.
What is polarity (or polar structure)?
The general term for cellular respiration that takes place in the absence of oxygen and is far less efficient at producing ATP.
What is anaerobic respiration?
This is the genetic material that viruses contain—either DNA or RNA—but they lack the cellular machinery, like ribosomes, to use it on their own.
What is a nucleic acid?