AP Environmental Science: 300 Terms with Real Cases
The free-response marks go to the mechanism and the example, not to the definition alone.
카드 300장
수록 카드 30장 보기
전체 300장 중 30장을 발췌해 보여 주고 있습니다.
| 앞면 | 뒷면 |
|---|---|
| Ecosystem | Meaning: A community of organisms together with the physical environment they interact with. Why it matters: It is the unit at which energy flow and nutrient cycling are studied. Example: A pond, including its water, sediment, plants, fish and bacteria. |
| Ecological succession | Meaning: The gradual change in the species composition of a community over time. Why it matters: It explains how ecosystems recover after disturbance. Example: Bare rock progressing to lichens, then soil, then shrubs and trees. |
| Population | Meaning: A group of individuals of one species living in the same area. Why it matters: It is the level at which growth, density and limits are measured. Example: All the brook trout in a single stream system. |
| Exponential growth | Meaning: Growth in which population increases by a constant proportion each interval. Why it matters: It produces a J-shaped curve and cannot continue indefinitely. Example: Bacteria doubling repeatedly in a fresh culture medium. |
| Density-dependent factor | Meaning: A limiting factor whose effect strengthens as density rises. Why it matters: It stabilises populations near carrying capacity. Example: Disease spreading faster through a crowded population. |
| r-selected species | Meaning: A species with many offspring, little parental care and a short life. Why it matters: These species colonise disturbed areas quickly. Example: Dandelions producing thousands of wind-dispersed seeds. |
| Ecological footprint | Meaning: The area of productive land and water needed to support a person or population. Why it matters: It compares consumption against what the planet can regenerate. Example: A high-consumption country requiring several times its own land area. |
| Layers of the atmosphere | Meaning: The vertical divisions of the atmosphere by temperature behaviour. Why it matters: Each layer has distinct effects on weather, ozone and radiation. Example: The troposphere holding almost all weather and water vapour. |
| Upwelling | Meaning: The rise of deep, nutrient-rich water toward the surface. Why it matters: It supports some of the world's most productive fisheries. Example: Coastal upwelling zones producing a large share of the global fish catch. |
| Renewable resource | Meaning: A resource replenished on a human timescale. Why it matters: It remains available only if used no faster than it regenerates. Example: A fishery collapsing when catch rates exceed reproduction. |
| Soil salinisation | Meaning: The accumulation of salts in soil, usually from irrigation. Why it matters: It reduces yields and can make land unusable. Example: White salt crusts appearing on irrigated fields in a dry climate. |
| Overfishing | Meaning: Harvesting fish faster than the population can reproduce. Why it matters: It reduces catches over time and can collapse a fishery entirely. Example: The Atlantic cod fishery closing after stocks failed to recover. |
| Clear-cutting | Meaning: Removing all trees from an area at once. Why it matters: It is cheap but causes erosion, habitat loss and stream warming. Example: Sediment from a clear-cut hillside filling a salmon spawning stream. |
| Surface mining | Meaning: Extracting minerals by removing the overlying soil and rock. Why it matters: It is cheaper than underground mining but destroys the surface entirely. Example: Strip mining removing overburden in long parallel cuts. |
| Urban sprawl | Meaning: Low-density expansion of a city into surrounding land. Why it matters: It consumes farmland, increases driving and raises infrastructure costs. Example: Housing developments spreading across former agricultural land at the city edge. |
| Ecological reserve | Meaning: An area set aside primarily to protect ecosystems and species. Why it matters: Reserve size and connectivity determine how much biodiversity survives. Example: Buffer zones surrounding a core protected area to reduce edge effects. |
| Cogeneration | Meaning: Using the waste heat from electricity generation for heating. Why it matters: It raises the overall efficiency of a fuel far above electricity alone. Example: A factory using turbine exhaust heat for its industrial processes. |
| Nuclear fission | Meaning: The splitting of heavy atomic nuclei to release energy. Why it matters: It generates large amounts of electricity with almost no carbon dioxide. Example: Uranium fuel rods sustaining a controlled chain reaction in a reactor core. |
| Hydroelectric power | Meaning: Electricity generated from flowing or falling water. Why it matters: It provides reliable low-carbon power but alters river ecosystems. Example: Dams blocking fish migration unless passages are provided. |
| Solar photovoltaic | Meaning: Technology that converts sunlight directly into electricity. Why it matters: It has no emissions in operation and can be installed at any scale. Example: Rooftop panels supplying part of a household's electricity. |
| Wind power | Meaning: Electricity generated by turbines driven by moving air. Why it matters: It has low operating emissions and land beneath turbines stays usable. Example: Farmland continuing in cultivation around the base of wind turbines. |
| Geothermal energy | Meaning: Energy drawn from heat within the Earth. Why it matters: It provides steady output but is limited to areas with accessible heat. Example: Iceland using volcanic heat for both electricity and district heating. |
| Biomass energy | Meaning: Energy from burning or processing organic material. Why it matters: It can be near carbon neutral if the material is regrown. Example: Wood pellets burned in place of coal in a converted power station. |
| Hydrogen fuel | Meaning: A fuel that releases only water when burned or used in a fuel cell. Why it matters: Its emissions depend entirely on how the hydrogen was produced. Example: Hydrogen made from natural gas carrying the emissions of that process. |
| Point source pollution | Meaning: Pollution entering the environment from a single identifiable place. Why it matters: It is easier to regulate because the source can be measured directly. Example: A discharge pipe from a factory into a river. |
| Acid deposition | Meaning: The fall of acidic compounds from the atmosphere as rain, snow or dry particles. Why it matters: It acidifies lakes and soils and damages forests and buildings. Example: Fish disappearing from lakes in regions with poorly buffered bedrock. |
| Indoor air pollution | Meaning: Contamination of the air inside buildings. Why it matters: People spend most of their time indoors, so exposure can exceed outdoor levels. Example: Cooking smoke in poorly ventilated homes. |
| Primary wastewater treatment | Meaning: The physical removal of solids from sewage. Why it matters: Screening and settling remove large material and suspended solids. Example: Grit chambers and settling tanks at the start of a treatment plant. |
| Dose-response relationship | Meaning: The relationship between the amount of a substance and the effect observed. Why it matters: It underlies every risk assessment and exposure limit. Example: A curve rising steeply once a threshold exposure is exceeded. |
| Ozone depletion | Meaning: The thinning of the stratospheric ozone layer. Why it matters: It allows more ultraviolet radiation to reach the surface. Example: Chlorine from refrigerant gases catalysing ozone breakdown in polar spring. |
이 덱 소개
Defining eutrophication earns nothing on its own. The point comes from saying that nutrient enrichment drives an algal bloom, that decomposing algae consume the oxygen, and that fish die in the resulting low-oxygen zone. Environmental science is a vocabulary course only on the surface. What it actually tests is whether you can name a cause, trace it to an effect, and attach a real case. This deck is 300 cards, one term per card, with the back cut into three fixed lines. "Meaning" defines the term in a sentence. "Why it matters" says what it causes, prevents or explains. "Example" gives one real case, place or measurable consequence. The sections follow the course: ecosystems and biodiversity, populations, earth systems and resources, land and water use, energy, and pollution and global change. No country's current statistic appears. Emissions figures and renewable shares change every year and a memorised number goes stale without warning, while the mechanism behind it does not. Once the deck is on a spaced-repetition schedule, the terms you can already explain stop coming back and the ones whose mechanism you keep reversing return until they stop being guesswork.
자주 묻는 질문
- What is in each section of the deck?
- Ecosystems and biodiversity has 55 cards, populations 40, earth systems and resources 50, land and water use 55, energy 45, and pollution and global change 55, for 300 in total. Every card carries section and subtopic tags, so you can drill only the energy unit or only the pollution unit.
- Why are there no current statistics on the cards?
- Because they go out of date faster than the deck does, and a wrong number is worse than no number. Emissions totals, energy shares and population figures all shift yearly. What does not shift is why a thermal inversion traps pollutants or why a dead zone forms, and that is what the cards carry.
- Does it cover the maths on the exam?
- It covers the concepts the calculations are built on, such as what a doubling time means or how energy is lost between trophic levels, but not the arithmetic itself. The exam's calculations are simple once the setup is right, and getting the setup right is what these cards support.
- Can I import the whole deck on the free plan?
- Yes. Importing a saved deck runs no new AI generation and spends no AI credits, so the free plan imports all 300 cards. You can study, edit and delete them afterwards.
- Will importing it twice create duplicates?
- No. Cards you already have are skipped and only cards added in a revision come through. Including re-imports after deleting it, one official deck can be imported three times per account.
- Can I use it on the web and in the mobile app?
- Yes. The deck is added to your account rather than to a device, so the same cards and the same progress are there on the web, on iOS and on Android.
- Can I edit the cards after importing?
- Yes. Imported cards are yours: you can edit both sides, delete cards you do not need, change tags, and move cards to another deck.
No official exam questions are reproduced. Every card was written for this deck.Advanced Placement is a trademark of College Board. This deck is not produced, endorsed or approved by College Board.Editorial reference date 2026-08-31.