Ecosystems: concept, components. The Ecosphere.
- (a) Which are the fossil fuels? (b) Where do we use them? (c) Why is their daily consumption a problem for the environment?
- Make a diagram showing how the greenhouse effect is produced.
- Why are plants important at alleviating the problem of the global warming?
- Methane has a greater heat-trapping power than CO2. How is it produced?
- Make a diagram showing how acid rain is produced.
- What are the main harmful effects of the acid rain?
- What are the main sources of water pollution?
- How can a lot of organic waste reduce the numbers of animal life in a river?
- How can phosphates or nitrates accumulate in your body?
- What is eutrophication and why is it a problem for both aquatic plants and animals?
- How can pests be controlled naturally? What risk do this techniques pose?
- Why is manure more eco-friendly than chemical fertilisers?
- Name five reasons by which the fish populations may be declining in many areas of the planet.
- Why is deforestation produced?
- Name six adverse effects of deforestation.
- Which three measures to conserve natural ecosystems do you find more necessary in your region?
- Why are fungi and bacteria so important for ecosystems?
- How would you slow down the rate of decay of dead organic matter?
- Why is carbon essential for all living beings?
- Make a diagram of the carbon cycle.
- Why is nitrogen essential for all living beings?
- Why do plants depend on soil's bacteria and algae for their nitrogen supply?
- Why is it good for farmers to grow a crop of leguminous plants from time to time?
- Make a diagram of the nitrogen cycle.
 What to Learn   
 Basic Information Mind map: The Nitrogen cycle[Source] External Links Miscellaneous
Ecosystems
Global Warming
The Slimming of the Ozone Layer
Water Consumption
Water Pollution
Other Human Influences on the Ecosystems
 Movies, Animations and Audios DownloadPreviousNextClose Global Warming Global Warming. Global Warming is a hot topic. This video looks at the evidence and focuses on these two questions: "is the Earth getting warmer?" and "what are the effects of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere?"  The truth about climate change. A simple and effective way to see how human activity relates to global warming.  Teens, frogs and climate change. With frogs and other amphibians already dying in large numbers, a group of teenagers is joining other amateur scientists to gather information on the problem.  Early birds and springtime. A growing body of evidence shows that birds are nesting earlier due to global warming, with potentially harmful consequences. Acid Rain Coal combustion and acid rain. Watch how sulphur-rich coal is a major source of acid rain and what can be done to mitigate its damage.  Analysing acid rain. Visit this research station in the Black Forest, Germany, to watch rainwater being tested for acidity. Other Human Influences on the Ecosystems The disappearing male. Documentary about one of the most important, and least publicized, issues facing the human species: the toxic threat to the male reproductive system. The last few decades have seen steady and dramatic increases in the incidence of boys and young men suffering from genital deformities, low sperm count, sperm abnormalities and testicular cancer. At the same time, boys are now far more at risk of suffering from ADHD, autism, Tourette's syndrome, cerebral palsy, and dyslexia. The Disappearing Male takes a close and disturbing look at what many doctors and researchers now suspect are responsible for many of these problems: a class of common chemicals that are ubiquitous in our world. Found in everything from shampoo, sunglasses, meat and dairy products, carpet, cosmetics and baby bottles, they are called "hormone mimicking" or "endocrine disrupting" chemicals and they may be starting to damage the most basic building blocks of human development.  Images PrintPreviousNextClose  Ecosystems
Global Warming
The Slimming of the Ozone LayerWater ConsumptionWater PollutionOther Human Influences on the Ecosystems Popular Resources on the Net  Now in the News  Activities Questions: Ecology[Source lesson]Questions: Populations[Source lesson]
Sliding PuzzleWhat kills more than 8,000,000 people every year?
Contact the webmaster  The following form is provided for you to help on the development of this website by sending interesting links, ideas or telling about incidental problems when browsing the site. The message will be sent to the webmaster's mailbox who, eventually, will give you a reply. All fields are mandatory. Recommend this website The following form is provided for you to tell your friends to come and visit Science Helpdesk. All fields are mandatory. About Science Helpdesk is a website meant to help on developing the scientific contents of the Bilingual Project Integrated Curriculum designed by the Spanish Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia and the British Council. Science Helpdesk is designed, developed and published by Arturo J. Murias, currently working in the I.E.S. "Eras de Renueva" (León, Spain) as a Science teacher in the Bilingual Project (MEC/BC). This website is in continuous development and currently under construction. This means that (a) you could spot some relevant errors in the rendering of the pages—please use the "Contact" form below to report to the webmaster, (b) that it is not feature complete, and (c) that a few pages are still to come and some sections a bit short of contents. This website is regularly tested in Mozilla Firefox 3 and Internet Explorer 8; it is also often tested in the latest versions of Opera, Safari and Chrome browsers, all of them in Windows. Testing for older browsers is rarely done, though, and using them might result in unexpected display or behaviour defects. Specifically, you are advised to not to use versions 6 or older of Internet Explorer. Parts of this site (specifically photos and videos) are used without permission, but within fair use, for the purposes of education. Copyright of those contents belong to their authors, mentioned where known. The contents created by the author of this website can be freely distributed under the terms of a Creative Commons License. JavaScript code (and so, every animation and visual effect) has been written upon the awesome jQuery library developed by John Resig and the jQuery team. RSS fetching is accomplished through the SimplePie PHP library developed by Ryan Parman, Geoffrey Sneddon and contributors. The icons used here come from a variety of sources, including the Silk Icons icon set created by Mark James. |
|
|
Science Helpdesk by Arturo J. Murias is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Spain License. |
