The Nature of Science
The factor a scientist changes on purpose in an experiment.
What is the independent variable?
The three processes that break, move, and drop rocks on Earth’s surface.
What are weathering, erosion, and deposition?
Rock formed from cooled magma or lava.
What is igneous rock?
Scientists use these when something is too big, too small, or too complex to study directly.
What are models?
The lithosphere is broken into pieces called these
What are tectonic plates?
Cutting down large areas of trees is known as this.
What is deforestation?
The type of variable that is measured or observed in an experiment.
What is the dependent variable?
Wind depositing sand forms this landform.
What is a sand dune?
Rock changed by heat and pressure deep inside Earth.
What is metamorphic rock?
A benefit and a limitation of scientific models.
Benefit: helps explain or demonstrate something; Limitation: not exactly like the real thing.
The type of boundary where plates move apart
What is a divergent boundary?
Building cities and roads reduces natural land and increases runoff through this process.
What is urbanization?
When another scientist repeats an investigation to see if the same results can be obtained.
Answer: What is replication?
A river carrying away sediment is an example of this process.
What is erosion?
Rock formed when sediments are compacted and cemented.
What is sedimentary rock?
A pattern-finding model used by scientists to make predictions.
What is a mathematical model?
The type of boundary where plates collide.
What is a convergent boundary?
When soil becomes dry, overused, and unable to support plant life.
What is desertification?
A scientist chooses this type of investigation when they want to make observations in a natural environment, rather than control conditions.
What is a field study?
This feature forms where a river meets the ocean and drops its sediment.
What is a delta?
The movement of rock material through the stages of igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic forms.
What is the rock cycle?
The shapes of continents and fossil evidence helped support this idea
What is continental drift/Pangea?
This famous zone of explosive volcanoes surrounds the Pacific Ocean.
What is the Ring of Fire?
The contamination of air from burning fossil fuels can lead to this global issue
What is climate change or global warming?
Scientists collaborate because sharing ideas allows them to do these three things: name one
What is complement their skills, access equipment, and expand ideas, check accuracy of one anothers work
Name one landform formed by rivers.
Rivers: floodplains, deltas, channels.
Name the process that turns sedimentary rock into metamorphic rock.
What is heat and pressure?
Scientists believe Earth has changed over time thanks to evidence Name two examples.
Puzzle-piece continents, tropical fossils in Antarctica, matching rock layers., same fossils found on different continents
Mantle convection causes tectonic plates to move. Name one landform created by this movement.
Mid-ocean ridges, rift valleys, mountains, ocean basins, volcanoes, faults.
Name one way humans change the flow of water.
over farming, over grazinng, Building dams, irrigation canals, or pumping aquifers