APES Exam Study guide Questions and
Answers
Ecological Footprint - answer Amount of biologically productive land and water
needed to supply a population with the renewable resources it uses and to absorb or
dispose of the wastes from such resource use. It is a measure of the average
environmental impact of populations in different countries and areas
Ecological Tipping Point - answer Threshold level at which an environmental
problem causes a fundamental and irreversible shift in the behavior of a system.
Ecology - answer Biological science that studies the relationships between living
organisms and their environment; study of the structure and functions of nature.
Natural Capital - answer Natural resources and natural services that keep us and
other species alive and support our economies.
Per Capita - answer Annual gross domestic product (GDP) of a country divided by its
total population at midyear. It gives the average slice of the economic (or
environmental) pie per person.
Ecosystem Services - answer Natural services or natural capital that support life on
the earth and are essential to the quality of human life and the functioning of the world's
economies.
Perpetual Resource - answer has a never-ending supply. Some examples of
perpetual resources include solar energy, tidal energy, and wind energy
Environmental Wisdom Worldview - answer Set of assumptions and beliefs about
how people think the world works, what they think their role in the world should be, and
what they believe is right and wrong environmental behavior (environmental ethics).
Planetary Management Worldview - answer Worldview holding that humans are
separate from nature, that nature exists mainly to meet our needs and increasing wants,
and that we can use our ingenuity and technology to manage the earth's life-support
systems, mostly for our benefit. It assumes that economic growth is unlimited.
Stewardship Worldview - answer Worldview holding that we can manage the earth
for our benefit but that we have an ethical responsibility to be caring and responsible
managers, or stewards, of the earth. It calls for encouraging environmentally beneficial
forms of economic growth and discouraging environmentally harmful forms.
,Sustainability - answer Ability of earth's various systems, including human cultural
systems and economies, to survive and adapt to changing environmental conditions
indefinitely.
scientific principles of sustainability - answer To live more sustainably we need to
rely on solar energy, preserve biodiversity, and recycle the chemicals that we use.
These three principles of sustainability are scientific lessons from nature based on
observing how life on the earth has survived and thrived for 3.5 billion years
First Law of Thermodynamics - answer Whenever energy is converted from one form
to another in a physical or chemical change, no energy is created or destroyed, but
energy can be changed from one form to another; you cannot get more energy out of
something than you put in; in terms of energy quantity, you cannot get something for
nothing. This law does not apply to nuclear changes, in which large amounts of energy
can be produced from small amounts of matter.
Second Law of Thermodynamics - answer Whenever energy is converted from one
form to another in a physical or chemical change, no energy is created or destroyed, but
energy can be changed from one form to another; you cannot get more energy out of
something than you put in; in terms of energy quantity, you cannot get something for
nothing. This law does not apply to nuclear changes, in which large amounts of energy
can be produced from small amounts of matter. It asserts that a natural process runs
only in one sense, and is not reversible.
Negative Feedback Loop - answer Feedback loop that causes a system to change in
the opposite direction from which is it moving.
Positive Feedback Loop - answer Feedback loop that causes a system to change
further in the same direction
Law of Conservation of Matter - answer In any physical or chemical change, matter
is neither created nor destroyed but merely changed from one form to another; in
physical and chemical changes, existing atoms are rearranged into different spatial
patterns (physical changes) or different combinations (chemical changes).
Electromagnetic Radiation - answer Forms of kinetic energy traveling as
electromagnetic waves. Examples include radio waves, TV waves, microwaves, infrared
radiation, visible light, ultraviolet radiation, X-rays, and gamma rays.
Ph - answer Numeric value that indicates the relative acidity or alkalinity of a
substance on a scale of 0 to 14, with the neutral point at 7. Acid solutions have pH
values lower than 7; basic or alkaline solutions have pH values greater than 7.
High-Quality energy - answer energy that is concentrated and has great ability to
perform useful work; e.g. heat and energy in electricity, coal, oil, gasoline, sunlight,
nuclei of uranium-235
, low quality energy - answer energy that is dispersed and has little ability to do useful
work; e.g. low-temperature heat
Ions - answer Atom or group of atoms with one or more positive (+) or negative (−)
electrical charges. Examples are Na+ and Cl-.
Isotopes - answer Two or more forms of a chemical element that have the same
number of protons but different mass numbers because they have different numbers of
neutrons in their nuclei.
Species - answer Group of similar organisms, and for sexually reproducing
organisms, they are a set of individuals that can mate and produce fertile offspring.
Every organism is a member of a certain species.
Population - answer Group of individual organisms of the same species living in a
particular area.
Community - answer Populations of all species living and interacting in an area at a
particular time.
Ecosystems - answer One or more communities of different species interacting with
one another and with the chemical and physical factors making up their nonliving
environment.
Biosphere - answer Zone of the earth where life is found. It consists of parts of the
atmosphere (the troposphere), hydrosphere (mostly surface water and groundwater),
and lithosphere (mostly soil and surface rocks and sediments on the bottoms of oceans
and other bodies of water) where life is found.
Atmosphere - answer Whole mass of air surrounding the earth.
Troposphere - answer Innermost layer of the atmosphere. It contains about 75% of
the mass of earth's air and extends about 17 kilometers (11 miles) above sea level.
Stratosphere - answer Second layer of the atmosphere, extending about 17-48
kilometers (11-30 miles) above the earth's surface. It contains small amounts of
gaseous ozone , which filters out about 95% of the incoming harmful ultraviolet radiation
emitted by the sun.
Hydrosphere - answer Earth's liquid water (oceans, lakes, other bodies of surface
water, and underground water), frozen water (polar ice caps, floating ice caps, and ice
in soil, known as permafrost), and water vapor in the atmosphere. See also hydrologic
cycle.
Abiotic - answer Nonliving
