Earth Systems & Resources unit test
A test on this unit alone, marked as a percentage and a letter grade — for the test your class is actually sitting, rather than for May. Answer everything, then submit once: seeing the answer to question 3 before attempting question 4 makes the final percentage meaningless.
Soil permeability and porosity
Aquifer and water table
Cation exchange capacity
El Niño and La Niña
Albedo
Saltwater intrusion
Soil pH and nutrient availability
Watershed
Hadley, Ferrel and Polar cells
Soil erosion causes
Rain shadow effect
Soil horizons
Short answer 1. Define or explain: Coriolis effect
3 ptsShort answer 2. Define or explain: Cone of depression
3 ptsShort answer 3. Define or explain: Plate tectonics
3 ptsShort answer 4. Define or explain: Soil texture triangle
3 ptsFree response
10 ptsThis course has no free-response prompt tagged to this unit, so one from elsewhere in the course is used. It is still worth writing — the skill transfers.
A stream draining agricultural land experiences dense algal blooms each spring, followed by fish kills in early summer. A class hypothesizes that phosphate from fertilizer applied to nearby fields is responsible.
Identify the independent variable in this experiment.
Identify the dependent variable and how it should be measured.
Describe the control group.
Identify ONE variable that must be held constant across the aquaria.
Explain why that variable must be held constant.
Predict how algal growth will differ across the treatments.
Explain what must be true of the difference between treatments for the result to be meaningful.
Describe what happens to the algae after a bloom forms.
Explain how that leads to a fish kill.
Identify ONE agricultural practice that would reduce phosphate runoff.