Science Fact Finder

Ecology

1. What is ecology? [answer]
2. How does a food chain work? [answer]
3. What is a food web? [answer]
4. What is a biome? [answer]
5. Why is El Nino harmful? [answer]
6. How does ozone benefit life on Earth? [answer]
7. What is red tide and what causes it? [answer]

Environmental Degradation

1. How rapidly is deforestation occurring? [answer]
2. How many acres of tropical forest does the world lose annually? [answer]
3. What products come from tropical forests? [answer]
4. Who coined the term "Spaceship Earth"? [answer]
5. How long will it be before all tropical forests have been destroyed, if present rates of destruction continue? [answer]
6. What is the greenhouse effect? [answer]
7. What are the components of smog? [answer]
8. How do chlorofluorocarbons affect the Earth's ozone layer? [answer]
9. What are flue gas "scrubbers"? [answer]
10. What is acid rain? [answer]
11. How acidic is acid rain? [answer]
12. What are PCBs? [answer]
13. What is eutrophication? [answer]
14. Where are the radioactive waste disposal sites in the United States? [answer]
15. How much oil is dumped into the seas? [answer]
16. Where did the first major oil spill occur? [answer]
17. Which pollutants lead to indoor air pollution? [answer]
18. How much solid waste is generated annually in the United States? [answer]
19. How much garbage does the average American generate? [answer]
20. How much does packaging contribute to municipal solid waste? [answer]
21. How critical is the problem of landfilling in the United States? [answer]
22. What are Operation Ranch Hand and Agent Orange? [answer]
23. What is the NIMBY syndrome? [answer]
24. How much waste paper does a newspaper generate? [answer]

Endangered And Extinct Species

1. Under what conditions is a species considered "endangered"? [answer]
2. Which animal species have become extinct since the Endangered Species Act was passed in 1973? [answer]
3. How many species of plants and animals are threatened in the United States? [answer]
4. Are turtles endangered? [answer]
5. What was the first animal on the U.S. endangered species list? [answer]
6. What is the status of the African elephant? [answer]
7. What is dolphin-safe tuna? [answer]
8. How did the dodo become extinct? [answer]
9. Why did dinosaurs become extinct? [answer]
10. What were the smallest and largest dinosaurs? [answer]
11. Did dinosaurs and humans live at the same time? [answer]

Conservation

1. Who is considered the founder of modern conservation? [answer]
2. What is a "green product"? [answer]
3. Who started Earth Day? [answer]
4. How much of the Earth is protected as national parks and similar sites? [answer]
5. What was the United States' first national park? [answer]
6. What natural resources are saved by recycling one ton of paper? [answer]
7. What do the numbers inside the recycling symbol on plastic containers mean? [answer]
8. How many trees are saved by recycling paper? [answer]
9. What products are made from recycled plastic? [answer]
10. What is the Pollutant Standard Index? [answer]
11. What is the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI)? [answer]
12. How many automobile tires are thrown away each year and what can be done with them? [answer]
13. What causes the most forest fires in the western United States? [answer]
14. When did the symbol of Smokey Bear begin to be used for forest fire prevention? [answer]