Scientific Method
What is the first step of the scientific method?
What is observing the problem?
What is ecology?
What is the study of relationships between organisms and between organisms and their environment?
What is a population?
What is a group of organisms of the same species living in the same place?
What does population dispersion describe?
What is how individuals in a population are spaced throughout an area?
A sunflower turns toward the sunlight. The sunlight is the ________, and the sunflower turning is the ________.
What are stimulus and response?
What is a proposed explanation based on previous knowledge and research?
What is a hypothesis?
What level of ecological organization includes multiple individuals of the SAME species living together?
What is a population?
What type of population growth occurs when a population grows without a limit?
What is exponential growth?
Name the THREE patterns of population dispersion.
What are clumped, uniform, and random?
Which type of limiting factor affects populations regardless of their size or density?
What is a density-independent limiting factor?
In an experiment, what is the ONE variable that the scientist intentionally changes?
What is the independent variable?
Put these in order from smallest to largest:
Organism
Community
Population
Ecosystem
Organism → Population → Community → Ecosystem
What type of population growth starts quickly and then levels off?
What is logistic growth?
Fish form large schools, and deer gather around a water source. What type of dispersion pattern is this?
What is clumped dispersion?
A population has plenty of food, water, and space. Suddenly, a hurricane destroys much of the habitat. What type of limiting factor is the hurricane?
What is a density-independent limiting factor?
A student tests whether different amounts of sunlight affect plant growth. The amount of sunlight is changed, and plant height is measured. What is the dependent variable?
What is plant height?
A field contains deer, birds, insects, plants, and squirrels. Scientists are studying all of the living organisms AND the temperature and precipitation in the field. What level are they studying?
What is an ecosystem?
What is the theoretical maximum population size that an environment can support?
What is carrying capacity?
Some birds defend their territories and maintain an equal distance from neighboring nests. What type of dispersion would you expect?
What is uniform dispersion?
A deer population increases from 20 to 50, but the amount of food and water stays the same. What will most likely happen to competition for resources?
Competition will increase because more individuals are using the same available resources.
DAILY DOUBLE
A student says, "If I move my orchids to a window, then they will grow taller because they will receive more sunlight." Identify the independent variable and dependent variable.
What are the two most specific levels of classification used in binomial nomenclature?
What are genus and species?
A rabbit population is becoming very crowded. The rabbits begin competing for food and space, and disease spreads more easily. Are these density-dependent or density-independent limiting factors?
What are density-dependent limiting factors?
DAILY DOUBLE
A population of 30 rabbits lives in a grassland with three areas containing abundant food and water. Two of those resource areas dry up. Predict how the rabbits' dispersion could change and explain why.
Students should predict that the rabbits will become more concentrated around the remaining resource area(s), changing the distribution because resource availability has changed.
DAILY DOUBLE
Where is Ms.Mays from?
BIG 706 AUGUSTA GEORGIA