Kiss the Ground
Soil earns this description because it contains microorganisms, fungi, and bacteria that support ecosystems.
Why is soil considered “alive”?
This term describes a species whose presence maintains the structure and balance of its ecosystem, as wolves did in Yellowstone.
What is a keystone species?
This element is a building block of life and cycles through plants, animals, soil, and the atmosphere.
What is carbon?
More than 97% of climate scientists agree that this factor is responsible for recent global warming trends.
What is the human-driven burning of fossil fuels (or greenhouse gas emissions)?
Increasing the number of antacid tablets in the experimental bottle raises the level of this gas, accelerating ice melt and reinforcing the feedback loop.
What is carbon dioxide (CO₂)?
These human activities—such as tilling, overgrazing, and use of synthetic fertilizers—can cause...
What are practices that may impact overall soil health in a negative way?
After wolves were eliminated, this consequence of increased elk activity led to stream bank collapse and erosion, making rivers muddy and less stable.
What is overgrazing and trampling of vegetation by elk?
This type of loop occurs when a change in a system causes effects that further amplify that change—like melting ice causing more warming.
What is a positive feedback loop?
These gases trap infrared heat in the atmosphere and are the leading cause of global warming.
What are greenhouse gases?
Adding this natural element to the experimental bottle could introduce a balancing feedback by reducing CO₂ levels and slowing the warming.
What is a plant?
This process, often caused by poor land management, removes plant cover and turns fertile land into barren landscapes.
What is desertification?
Healthy ecosystems like Yellowstone’s support biodiversity and natural cycles that absorb carbon and retain water—functions that help with this global environmental issue.
What is climate change resilience?
This term refers to heat energy emitted by Earth's surface, which is trapped by greenhouse gases and contributes to global warming.
What is infrared radiation?
This Earth system absorbs over 90% of the excess heat caused by greenhouse gas emissions, but is now reaching its limits.
What is the ocean?
In the climate feedback lab, factors like inconsistent tablet size, bottle seal quality, or uneven ice distribution could be classified as these, which affect experimental reliability.
What are sources of error?
This type of farming focuses on rebuilding organic matter in soil and restoring degraded biodiversity.
What is regenerative agriculture?
Removing top predators like wolves can cause a ripple effect through the food web known as this, leading to degraded habitats and fewer ecological services.
What is a trophic cascade?
This is the factor that is measured in an experiment to see how it responds to changes in another variable.
What is the dependent variable?
Healthy ecosystems with large predators are more able to resist this long-term environmental challenge driven by human activity.
What is climate change?
Using public transportation, eating less meat, and switching to renewable energy are all examples of actions you can take to reduce this environmental impact.
What is your carbon footprint (or carbon emissions)?
This common herbicide is widely sprayed on GMO corn and has been linked to negative impacts on soil microbiology and causing cancer.
What is glyphosate?
These animals play a crucial role in maintaining ecosystem balance by keeping herbivore populations in check and allowing vegetation and biodiversity to thrive.
What are apex predators?
This variable is kept the same throughout an experiment to ensure a fair test and isolate the effect of the independent variable.
What is the control variable?
These greenhouse gases trap heat in Earth’s atmosphere, contributing to the greenhouse effect. Name at least three.
What are carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄), and water vapor (H₂O), nitrous oxide, and fluorinated gases?
This was the volume of water added to each bottle to simulate melting ice, used as a baseline to help calculate changes during the climate feedback lab.
What is 25 milliliters (mL)?