This is a group of six key pollutants regulated by the U.S. EPA due to their health impacts.
What are the criteria pollutants?
What is oxygen sag?
The reduction in dissolved oxygen, plotted over a distance along a water body from a point at which sewage or other pollutants have been discharged
Any form of precipitation with acidic components, such as sulfuric or nitric acid that falls to the ground from the atmosphere in wet or dry forms. This can include rain, snow, fog, hail, or even dust that is acidic
What is acid rain?
What is smog?
A type of air pollution that combines smoke and fog, creating a dense, often toxic haze
Hazardous materials generated as byproducts of industrial, agricultural, and consumer activities, posing risks to human health, wildlife, and the environment
What is toxic waste?
The landmark 1987 agreement that phased out production of Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) to protect the stratospheric ozone layer.
What is the Montreal Protocol?
What is point source pollution?
Any single identifiable source of pollution from which pollutants are discharged, such as a pipe, ditch, ship or factory smokestack
What is the hydrologic cycle?

Describe the water quality lab
:) too long to type here
Compounds that have a high vapor pressure and low water solubility
What are VOCs (volatile organic compounds)?
What is eutrophication?
The nutrient overenrichment of aquatic systems leading to algal blooms and oxygen depletion.
This foundational U.S. law, passed in 1970, created the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate air, water, and chemical safety.
What is the Clean Air Act?
Biological processes, species, or communities and are used to assess the quality of the environment and how it changes over time.
What is a bioindicator?
Describe your food miles lab
:) too long to type here
This 1972 U.S. law requires environmental impact statements for major federal actions affecting the environment.
What is the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)?
A mixture of sand, clay, water, and bitumen
What are tar sands
This meteorological phenomenon occurs when a layer of warm air traps cooler, polluted air near the ground, responsible for the deadly London Fog (Great Smog) of 1952.
What is a temperature inversion?
An electronic device that converts the energy of light directly into electricity
What are photovoltaic cells?
I wasn't at the Earth Day speaking event; describe it to me in a way I can understand
:)
What is the chemical makeup of Earth's atmosphere?
:)
*Nitrogen (N₂): ≈ 78%
Oxygen (O₂): ≈ 21%
Argon (Ar): ≈ 0.93% Carbon Dioxide (CO₂): ≈ 0.04% (about 1% combined)
Trace Gases (combined): ~ 0.001 % each or less (Neon, Helium, Methane, Krypton, Hydrogen, Xenon, etc.)
Discarded electronic devices (like phones and computers) that often contain hazardous metals and chemicals.
What is e-waste?
The removal of impurities from wastewater, or sewage, before it reaches aquifers or natural bodies of water such as rivers, lakes, estuaries, and oceans
What is water-waste treatment?
What are some ways the common man (AKA, you and me) can get involved in protecting the environment?
Grassroots organizations, protests, writing to legislators, starting/joining relevant clubs/organizations, and even more!
Describe the lichen lab
:) too long to type here lol