Understanding Soil"
What is soil?
What is a mixture of organic matter, minerals, gases, liquids, and organisms that together support life?
What is loam?
What is a soil type that is a balanced mixture of sand, silt, and clay?
Four important air masses are maritime tropical, maritime polar, continental tropical, and continental polar. For EACH, state its TWO main characteristics and give an example of a region in which it is formed.
What are maritime tropical (warm, humid, forms over tropics), maritime polar (cool, humid, forms over polar oceans), continental tropical (hot, dry, forms over subtropical deserts), and continental polar (cold, dry, forms over high-latitude land)?
Distinguish between a tsunami and a tidal wave in terms of how they are formed.
What are seismic activity versus gravitational forces?
Define the term 'volcano'.
What is a rupture in the Earth's crust that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface?
Identify the THREE main factors that influence the formation of soil and distinguish among them.
What are parent material, climate, and living organisms?
Using air content, water content, and drainage, distinguish between a sandy soil and a clay soil.
What are sandy soil (high air content, low water content, fast drainage) and clay soil (low air content, high water content, slow drainage)?
What is meant by EACH of the following terms? i. Cold front ii. Warm front iii. Occluded front iv. Stationary front
What are weather fronts?
Describe a tsunami as it travels from its source, approaches land, and causes destruction.
What is the process of a tsunami?
How does thick lava affect the explosive nature of a volcano and the steepness of its slopes? How does lava with high water content affect the explosive nature of a volcano? What makes a fissure volcano different from all other types of volcanoes?
What are the characteristics of different lava types and volcanoes?
Outline the importance of soil to living organisms.
What is a habitat for plants, source of nutrients, water filter, and climate regulator?
Identify THREE causes of soil erosion and THREE methods farmers can employ to prevent the soil on their farm from eroding.
What are deforestation, overgrazing, and poor farming practices as causes; and crop rotation, contour plowing, and terracing as prevention methods?
Distinguish among a tropical depression, a tropical storm, and a hurricane in terms of wind speed.
What are different stages of cyclonic storm development?
Explain how sea waves are formed and what factors can influence their size and power.
What is the wind's interaction with the surface of the sea
State THREE advantages and THREE disadvantages of the ecological consequences of volcanoes.
What are fertile soils, creation of new land, and mineral deposits as advantages; and destruction of habitat, release of harmful gases, and climate impact as disadvantages?
Name the THREE horizons found in most soils and distinguish among them.
What are the O horizon (organic material), A horizon (topsoil), and B horizon (subsoil)?
Describe how the following are recycled in nature: a. Carbon b. Water
What is the carbon cycle and the water cycle?
Describe and explain how a tropical cyclone can develop into a hurricane and suggest TWO reasons why hurricanes weaken as they pass over land.
What is the role of warm ocean water and the lack of it?
Describe how ocean currents are formed, differentiate between surface currents and deep ocean currents, and explain their impact on global climate.
What is the process of ocean circulation influenced by wind, temperature, and salinity?
What is meant by a seismograph? The Richter scale?
What are instruments to measure earthquakes?
Explain how EACH of the following affects a soil's fertility: a. Its physical properties b. Its chemical properties c. Its humus content.
Physical properties like texture and structure affect water retention and root penetration. Chemical properties like pH and nutrient content determine the availability of nutrients. Humus content improves soil structure, moisture retention, and nutrient availability.
Explain how nitrates in the soil can be returned to the soil after being absorbed by grass growing in a field. What are nitrogen-fixing bacteria, and what is their role in the nitrogen cycle?
What is the process of decomposition and the role of nitrogen-fixing bacteria?
State FIVE ways you can prepare for a hurricane.
What are evacuation planning, securing property, storing supplies, preparing an emergency kit, and staying informed about the storm's progress?
Explain the causes and effects of El Niño and La Niña phenomena, including their impacts on global weather patterns.
What are changes in Pacific Ocean temperatures and atmospheric conditions that influence global weather?
Describe the physical conditions experienced by animals and plants living along the seashore.
What are fluctuations in temperature, salinity, moisture, light, and wind?