Soil
Degradation and Conservation
Agriculture
Misc.
Labs and video
100
Soil is this type of resource.
What is a renewable resource? Can you describe the difference between renewable and non renewable resources?
100
When erosion of soil occurs, it tends to wash away this fertile layer.
What is topsoil? Why is topsoil and important layer for agriculture, why is it susceptible to degradation?
100
This is the process of watering plants from sources other than precipitation, and it can accelerate salinization.
Irrigation How does salinization occur and how can it be reduced?
100
The human population world wide has been ______________________, creating a larger need for food than ever before.
What is increasing?
100
This is the name for the practice of growing only one crop in a field, usually for many seasons.
monocrop or monoculture What are the benefits and challenges of using monoculture?
200
Distinct layers that form within soil are called these.
What are soil horizons? Can you name the soil horizons (common name and horizon name) and how to identify each layer?
200
This type of farming practice prevents erosion of steep slopes.
What is terracing? What other technique is used to farm on slopes? How is it similar to and different from terracing?
200
Anything that damages plants that are valuable to us.
What is a pest? What are two types of farming practices that reduce vulnerability to pests/disease (you may be able to come up with three)
200
When land loses more than 10% of its productivity due to erosion, soil compaction, overgrazing, deforestation, etc it causes what?
What is desertification?
200
In labs, this was the soil particle that settled to the bottom, due to its larger and heavier particles.
Sand Where did the other types of soil particles settle, how do they differ in particle size?
300
Name two ways in which parent material can be exposed for weathering.
What from lava or volcanic ash, deposited by glaciers, sand dunes, and deposit from rivers. Is this primary or secondary succession?
300
This farming practice decreases erosion because it increases plant cover and also adds nutrients back into the soil, and reduces vulnerability to pests and crop failure
What is intercropping?
300
What are two impacts of overgrazing?
-reduced plant cover causes more erosion -compaction of soil reduces plant growth - reducing native plants allows non native species to thrive How can overgrazing be prevented?
300
Which forestry practices create a large amount of erosion and which produces less erosion?
Clear cutting produces a large amount of erosion, selective logging results in lower amounts of erosion.
300
This type of soil had high water holding capacity.
clay What are some benefits to having soil with a high water holding capacity? What are some challenges?
400
Soil is primarily composed of these three particles.
What is clay, silt, and sand? Can you use the soil type pyramid to determine the soil type based on the percent composition?
400
Name three cons of using pesticides.
What is it poisons soil, filters into groundwater, evaporates into air, can be toxic to humans or other animals What are benefits of using pesticides?
400
How is desertification a global problem?
- access to food availability - movement of populations to cities - increased fighting over land and water access - dust storms What regions of the globe are more likely to experience desertification first hand?
400
This is the raising of fish populations under controlled conditions and using their waste as the source of nitrogen for growing plants.
What is an aquaculture. What are the other types of hydroponic systems?
400
What is hydroponics?
The practice of growing crops without soil.
500
By percentage, these two components make up half of most soil samples.
What is air and water?
500
Name two ways human's agricultural practices can lead to erosion.
What is leaving soil bare after a harvest, overgrazing, or deforestation. You may be able to come up with others. How can humans reduce the impact their agricultural practices have on erosion?
500
This method of farming creates a furrow in the soil, leaving old plant growth in place, instead of turning the soil over.
What is no till or reduced till farming. How is this different from tilling? Which helps to prevent erosion?
500
This is the name of the event that occurred in the Great Plains in the 1930s as the result of removing native grasses to plant crops along with years of drought.
What is the Dust Bowl. What was the role of topsoil in the story of the Dust Bowl?
500
Why would a farmer choose to use hydroponics.
Grow food year round, grow food in areas where the soil is not good for farming, grow food where there is not much space, reduce the amount of water used to grow a crop, control pests (there may be other reasons)
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