Final Review

There is a down-loadable powerpoint of today's final review available here (you can also go to it from the main course website).

Environmental Economics

• What are the internal costs?
• What are the external costs?
• What are the true costs?
• How does the law of diminishing returns apply?
• How does opportunity cost apply?
• What are the pros/cons of internalizing external costs?

Air Pollution

• What is the composition of air?
• What is the difference between acute and chronic pollution effects?
• What are three factors that determine the severity of an air pollutant’s effects?
• What is a temperature inversion?
• How can temperature inversions be harmful?
• Why do we have smoke stacks?
• What is SPLONC?
• Why are VOCs in the atmosphere bad?
• What are the two types of smog?
• What can you do to reduce air pollution?

Water Pollution

• Four categories of ‘health disrupting’ pollutants
• What are endocrine disruptors? Why should we worry about them?
• What causes 80% of human disease worldwide?
• What are the four categories of ‘ecosystem disrupting’ pollutants?
• What is eutrophication? Why is it bad?
• What is a point source vs. a non-point source pollutant?
• What law does the EPA primarily use to regulate water quality?
• How can you combat non-point source water pollution?

Water resources

• Do you understand the hydrological cycle?
• What is evapotranspiration?
• What is water in the U.S. used for? Internationally? (relative percentages)
• What is an aquifer? Why do I care about its recharge and discharge areas
• What are the pros and cons of ‘additional’ water sources? (groundwater, cloud seeding, dams, diversions, desalination, conservation)

Soil and Food Resources

• What are soil horizons?
• Why does tropical ranforest have shallow topsoil?
• What are the forces behind soil erosion?
• What are the effects of soil erosion?
• Which anthropogenic activities cause soil erosion?
• What are some soil conservation methods
• Why should we worry about world food production?
• Why is it worrisome that 4 staple crops supply most of the world’s food?
• How can we make more food available to the ‘world market’
• What is integrated pest management?

Population Dynamics

• What is exponential population growth?
• What is carrying capacity?
• What determines whether a population size changes?
• What are the factors that affect birth rate? EXPLAIN.
• What is cultural carrying capacity?
• What is people ocerpopulation versus consumption overpopulation
• Who has the higherst per capita resource use?
• How would you deal with overpopulation?

Natural Selection (3/3/2008):

• What is the heritable material passed from parent to offspring?
• What is a gene? An allele?
• How does genetic variation arise?
• What is the technical definition of evolution?
• What are the four principle mechanisms of evolutionary change?
• What are the requirements for Natural Selection?
• Do you understand Natural Selection?
• What are the three types of evolution? Can you define them?

Ecosystem IV (2/25)

• What determines whether a species will occur at any given place and time?
• Understand Immigration and Introduction.
• What is a habitat? Microhabitat?
• What is a niche? Fundamental vs. Realized?
• What is a specialist vs. generalist?
• What does anthropogenic mean?
• What are feedback systems? Positive? Negative?
• What is ecosystem persistence? Ecosystem resilience?
• What is ecosystem succession?

Past Quiz Reviews:

Ecology III (2/20)

• What are biogeochemical cycles?
• What is the law of conservation of matter?
• What are the 6 major elements in living organisms?
• What are the reservoirs for these elements?
• What are the 4 basic biogeochemical cycles?
• Nitrogen cycle: how does nitrogen move from the atmosphere into organisms? From organisms back to the environment?
• Carbon cycle: how does carbon move in and out of the 4 carbon reservoirs (atmosphere, lithosphere, hydrosphere, organisms)
• 5 types of ecosystem services

Ecology II (2/18)

• What is energy?
• What is energy quality?
• What is the second law of thermodynamics?
• What is a food chain?
• What is a food web?
• What is the basic ‘energy pyramid’ for an ecosystem?

Ecology I (2/13)

• What are the four components of the earth?
• What is the Biosphere?
• What are the four levels of organization in Ecology?
• What are the five basic structural components of an ecosystem?
• What is the difference between primary and secondary consumers?
• Is energy recycled in an ecosystem?

Meterology II (2/11)

• Warm air holds (more or less) water vapor than cold air holds ?
• As air heats up, the relative humidity increases or decreases?
• As air rises, the relative humidity increases or decreases?
• Three ways that air rises and causes rain?
• Can you explain them?
• Why doesn’t it rain in Tucson?

Meteorology I (2/6)

• Why do we care about climate?
• What are the three factors that determine temperature?
• How do these factors affect temperature?
• What causes the seasons?

Plate Tectonics (2/4)

• Where does the material of the ocean floor come from?
• Where does the old ocean floor go?
• What force is strong enough to move continents and ocean floors?
• Be able to define the following:
• Divergent Plate Boundary
• Ocean-Continent Convergent Plate Boundary
• Ocean-Ocean Convergent Plate Boundary
• Continent-Continent Convergent Plate Boundary
• Transform Plate Boundary
• Explosive Volvanoes
• Non-explosive (blooping) Volcanoes

Science (1/30)

• Be able to list and apply the 8 steps in the process of science
• Be able to list and apply the 3 rules of science
• Be able to define terms discussed

Social Traps (1/28)

• Define social traps
• List and define specific social traps
• Give examples for each social trap
• Given an environmental problem, recognize applicable social traps
• Describe ways to avoid social traps and their pros and cons
• List the 4 attitudes given in class that affect the way people look at and act upon environmental problems. For each attitude, what is the problem with holding that attitude? What attitude should replace these?

Climate: Temperature

I want you to understand why biologists care about climate. I also want you to know the three factors that affect temperature on earth AND WHY. You should know that temperature decreases with altitude and why, why greenhouses gases insulate the earth, and why it is colder at the poles than it is at the equator. You should also understand why we have seasons.

Plate Tectonics

Today we talked about what creates mountains, volcanoes, rifts, trenches and earthquakes. I want you to know what the physical mechanism is for moving the continents, what the five types of plate boundries are, and what geographical features are present/ created at each.

Science

What do I want you to know about science. I want you to understand that science is a 'way of knowing', it is a technique used to learn about the natural world that anyone can learn to do. I want you to know the 8 steps of science, and the differnce between an experimental and a control variable.

Social Traps: 28 January 2007

Today's lecture was on social traps, the "Tragedy of the Commons", and common attitudes towards environmental problems. For your quiz you should know the different types of social traps and be able to come up with an example of each. You should also know different strategies for avoiding social traps, along with their pros and cons. Additionally you should be familiar with the fours common attitudes towards environmental problems, and the attitude that should replace them.

Welcome!

Welcome to Sprayberry's Environmental Biology Blog. The idea behind this blog is two-fold: 1. It will give students a place to come see a brief synopsis of I see as the main points behind each lecture and activity; and 2. It provides a forum for anonymous feedback. Feel free to post any comments/ critiques / issues you have with a lecture or topic. You can post comments with your own blogger identity, or leave them anonymously. I will check comments regularly. See you in class...