A thin rocky shell that forms the Earth's surface.
What is the crust?
100
This makes up 97% of the planet's water.
What is salt water?
100
The usual, predictable patterns of weather in an area over many years.
What is climate?
100
Chemicals in air pollution can combine with precipitation to form this, which is harmful to the environment.
What is acid rain?
100
A crack in the Earth's crust.
What is a fault?
200
A layer of hot, dense rock surrounding the Earth's core.
What is the mantle?
200
This plateau lies off the coast of each continent and stretches for several miles underwater.
What is the continental shelf?
200
An area in which particular kinds of plants and animals have adapted to particular climates.
What is a biome?
200
The careful use of resources to avoid wasting them.
What is conservation?
200
The variety of plants and animals living on the planet.
What is biodiversity?
300
The process by which weathered bits of rock are moved elsewhere by water, wind, or ice.
What is erosion?
300
Daily Double:
A body of land that is smaller than a continent and completely surrounded by water.
Give one example.
What is an island?
300
Wind patterns that are similar over time.
What are prevailing winds?
300
Some polluting chemicals combine with ozone to create this thick haze of smoke and chemicals.
What is smog?
300
In this process, water changes from gas back to a liquid.
What is condensation?
400
The process in which rock is broken into smaller pieces by water and ice, chemicals, or even plants.
What is weathering?
400
A piece of land that is connected to a larger landmass on one side but has water on the other three sides.
What is a peninsula?
400
Very heavy rains fall on western South America, causing floods. Meanwhile, little rain falls on Australia, southern Asia, and Africa.
What is El Nino?
400
Many scientists claim that this growing concern was caused by greenhouse gases trapping the sun's heat near the Earth's surface. However, it remains a very controversial topic.
What is global warming?
400
Tectonic activity makes these deep cuts in the ocean floor.
What are trenches?
500
This theory explains how the continents were formed and why they move.
What is plate tectonics?
500
A narrow strip of land that connects two larger landmasses and has water on two sides.
What is an isthmus?
500
This causes unusually cool waters and low rainfall in the eastern Pacific. In the western Pacific, rains are heavy and typhoons can occur.
What is La Nina?
500
One of two methods that farmers use to protect the topsoil on their land.
What is contour plowing or crop rotation?
500
Weather patterns in cities as compared to nearby rural areas.