Yr 11 ESS Half Yearly Exam 2016

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What is an EVS?
A world view that shapes the way an individual or group of people perceive and evaluate environmental issues.
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What are 2 EVS inputs?
Education and cultural influences
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What is a society?
A group of individuals who share common characteristics
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What is anthropocentrism?
Believing humans must sustainably manage the global system.
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What is ecocentrism?
Integrates social, spiritual and environmental dimensions into a holistical idea.
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What is technocentrism?
Believing that technological developments can provide solutions to environmental problems.
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What is intristic value?
When something has value in its own right.
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What is the biosphere?
The biological components of Earth's systems.
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What is a system?
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What is a system made up of?
Storages, flows, processes, feedback mechanisms
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What is an open system?
When both matter and energy are exchanged across the boundaries of the system.
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What is a closed system?
When energy but not matter is exchanged across the boundaries of a system.
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What is an isolated system?
A hypothetical concept in which neither energy or matter are exchanged across the boundaries of a system.
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What is a model?
A simplified version of reality.
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What are transfers?
When the flow does not involve a change of form.
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What are transformations?
When a flow involves a change of form.
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What are mesocosms?
Any outdoor experimental system that examines the natural environment under controlled conditions.
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What is an autotroph?
An organism that is able to form nutritional organic substances such as carbon dioxide.
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What is a heterotroph?
Cannot make their own energy.
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What are consumers?
Feed on other organisms in the food chain.
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What are saporotrophs?
Feed and derive nourishment from decaying organic matter.
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What are detritivores?
Feeds on and breaks down dead plant and animal matter.
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State the first law of thermodynamics.
Energy can neither be created nor destroyed.
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State the second law of thermodynamics.
Energy goes from a concentrated form (e.g. Sun) into a dispersed form (heat).
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What is entropy?
A measure of the amount of disorder in a system.
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What is equilibrium?
Refers to a state of balance, as exists in open systems.
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What is positive feedback?
Occurs when a change in the state of a system leads to additional and increased change.
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What is negative feedback?
Occurs when the output of a process inhibits or reverses the operation of the same process in such a way that reduces change.
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What is diversity/biodiveristy?
The variation within and between living things.
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What is disturbance?
A natural part of the ecosystem and can promote diversity, however too much disturbance decreases productivity and diversity.
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What is resilience?
The ability of an ecosystem to resist or recover from disturbance.
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What is sustainability?
The use and management of resources that allows full natural replacement of the resources exploited.
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What is sustainable development?
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What is natural income?
What you earn
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What is pollution?
The contamination of the Earth and atmosphere to such an extent that normal environmental processes are adversely affected.
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What are the different types of pollution?
Point source, non-point source, chronic, biodegradable, persistent and acute.
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What is primary pollution?
Pollution that is active on emission
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What is secondary pollution?
Pollution arising from primary pollutants undergoing physical or chemical change.
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What are the 2 types of pollutants?
Persistent and Biodegradable
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What is DDT?
A synthetic pesticide.
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What are some pollution management methods?
1. Modern Technology in assistance 2. Human Behaviour changes
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What is a species?
A group of organisms sharing common characteristics that can interbreed and produce younglings.
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What is a habitat?
The environment in which a species normally lives.
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What is a niche?
Where, when and how an organism lives.
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What are abiotic factors?
The non-living parts of the environment that determine the fundamental and realised niche of species.
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What are biotic factors?
The living parts of the environment
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What is carrying capacity?
The number of organisms or size of population that an area of ecosystem can support sustainably over a long period of time.
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What are limiting factors?
Factors that slow population growth as it approaches the carrying capacity of the system.
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What is a community?
Many species living together.
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What is an ecosystem?
A community of interdependent organisms and the physical environment in which they inhabit.
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Ecosystems can be divided into what 3 types?
Terrestrial + Marine + Freshwater
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What is photosynthesis?
The process by which all living plants undertake using sunlight to synthesise nutrients from carbon dioxide and water.
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What is respiration?
The process of releasing energy from glucose and other organic molecules inside all living cells.
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What is an input, output and transformation regarding photosynthesis?
Input: Organic matter (glucose) and oxygen Output: Glucose used as an energy source and as the starting material for other organic molecules Transformation: the energy change from light energy to chemical energy
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What is an input, output and transformation regarding respiration?
Input: organic matter (glucose) and oxygen Output: release of energy for work and heat Transformation: the energy transformation is from chemical energy into kinetic energy and heat
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What are producers?
Organisms that convert abiotic components into living matter.
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What are consumers?
Organisms that can't make their own food and therefore eat other organisms to obtain energy and matter.
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What are decomposers?
Organisms that obtain their food and nutrients from the breakdown of dead organic matter.
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What are trophic levels?
The position that an organism or a group of organisms in a community occupy in a food chain.
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What is bioaccumulation?
The build up of persistent/non-biodegradable pollutants within an organism or trophic level.
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What is biomagnification?
The increase in concentration of persistent/non-biodegradable pollutants along a food chain.
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How do you calculate ecological efficiency?
energy used for growth/energy supplied x100
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What are 2 pathways of energy?
1. Conversion of light energy 2. Transfer of chemical energy
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What is productivity?
Production of biomass per unit of area per unit time.
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What is egestion?
The act or process of discharging undigested or waste material from a cell or organism
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What is assimilation?
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What are biomes?
Collections of ecosystems sharing familiar climatic conditions.
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What is insolation?
The solar radiation reaching a given area.
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What is precipitation?
The process of water being precipitated from a substance.
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What is zonation?
The arrangement or pattern of communities in bands in response to change in some environmental factor over a distance.
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What is succession?`
The process of change in an ecosystem in a period of time.
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What is a climax community?
A community of organisms that is more or less stable and is also in equilibrium.
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Other cards in this set

Card 2


What are 2 EVS inputs?


Education and cultural influences

Card 3


What is a society?


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Card 4


What is anthropocentrism?


Preview of the front of card 4

Card 5


What is ecocentrism?


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