Desert Ecosystems
These tall plants in the Sonoran Desert can live for over 100 years and store water in their stems.
(Saguaro) Cacti
These three sub-atomic particles make up an atom.
What are protons, neutrons, and electrons?
This gas makes up approximately 78% of the Earth's atmosphere today.
What is nitrogen?
This is the term for a light ray that is arriving at a surface, such as a mirror.
What is an incident ray?
This 8-letter word describes the range of colors produced when white light is split.
What is a spectrum?
These small, rocky objects orbit the Sun, mostly in a belt between Mars and Jupiter.
What are asteroids?
DAILY DOUBLE!
These sharp structures on a cactus stem protect the plant from being eaten by animals.
What are spines?
The protons and neutrons are grouped together in this central part of the atom.
What is the nucleus?
This was the primary source of the gases that formed Earth's early atmosphere.
What are volcanoes?
According to the law of reflection, the angle of incidence is always equal to this angle.
What is the angle of reflection?
A red filter allows this color of light to pass through while absorbing all others.
What is red?
What is the smallest planet in our solar system?
What is Mercury?
This term refers to all the living organisms in an area and the way they interact with each other and their environment.
What is an ecosystem?
These sub-atomic particles have a negative electrical charge and orbit the nucleus.
What are electrons?
Name a "green house gas".
What is methane or carbon dioxide?
This imaginary line is drawn perpendicular (at 90°) to a mirror's surface at the point of reflection to help measure angles.
What is the normal?
Daily Double!
This color is produced when blue light and red light of the same brightness are mixed.
What is magenta?
This is a planetoid/asteroid found between Mars and Jupiter
What is Ceres
This specific type of bird often makes its nest by drilling holes into saguaro cacti.
What is the Gila woodpecker?
This sub-atomic particle has a mass nearly the same as a proton but carries no electrical charge.
What is a neutron?
This process, caused by increasing greenhouse gases, refers to the gradual rise in Earth's average temperature.
What is global warming/climate change?
Objects appear distorted when reflected in this common kitchen utensil because its surface is not plane (flat).
What is a spoon?
When red light and green light of equal brightness overlap on a white wall, they produce this color.
What is yellow?
Scientists study these samples from deep in the ice of Greenland to understand how the atmosphere has changed over time.
What are ice cores?
This term describes a species that is brought into an ecosystem where it does not normally live, often causing harm to native species.
What is an invasive/introduced/non-native species?
This is the reason atoms usually have no overall electrical charge.
What is because they have an equal number of protons (+) and electrons (-)?
Daily Double!
Unlike today's atmosphere, Earth's early atmosphere contained very little or none of this life-sustaining gas.
What is oxygen?
This phenomenon occurs when light travels from one transparent material to another (such as from air into glass), causing the light rays to change direction as they change speed.
What is refraction?
When white light passes through this triangular glass object, it slows down and changes direction, causing it to disperse into a spectrum of colors.
What is a prism?
This is a piece of evidence scientists use to show that the Earth is getting warmer over time.
What is melting ice caps (or rising sea levels/temperature graphs)?