17) According to Edward O. Wilson, the most serious and threatening environmental problem is
the ________.
A) introduction of invasive species
B) loss of biodiversity
C) loss of arable land to expanding cities
D) extensive use of pesticides and fertilizers
E) acid rain
18) The cumulative number and types of living things on Earth is ________.
A) called taxonomy
B) its biodiversity
C) increasing rapidly
D) its environment
E) an abiotic factor
19) You have read about the mistakes made on Easter Island. On Tikopia, another small island,
the people acted in other ways. When they realized that the pigs they had imported were
damaging the environment, they killed them all. They had to have permission from a chief to
fish, which prevented overfishing. They practised contraception. These all indicate that
________.
A) they believed in full resource utilization
B) they felt that everything was a nonrenewable resource
C) they felt that everything was a renewable resource
D) they applied technological innovations to increase their resources
E) they practised sustainability
20) Carbon dioxide from fossil fuels, in addition to warming the atmosphere, is also a primary
cause of ________.
A) toxic air pollution in the Arctic
B) deforestation
C) acidification of ocean water
D) an increase in the UV-radiation (ozone hole)
E) soil degradation
21) Sustainable development ________.
A) ensures an economy that will decline over time
B) means consuming resources without compromising future availability
C) is impossible to accomplish
D) is beyond our current technology and attitudes
E) is possible given our increased use of fertilizers and technology for agriculture
22) Pesticide use ________.
A) may be a necessary part of modern technological agriculture with monocultures
B) can be eliminated by changing the season when crops are planted
C) will be eliminated as pests are decreasing as a consequence of years of pesticide use
D) poses no environmental threat in this country
E) will not be a problem as we learn to genetically modify predators
23) In a controlled experiment, ________.
A) the researcher has several hypotheses, one of which will be proven correct
B) the researcher knows the outcome before she or he begins
C) the researcher controls for the effects of all variables except one
D) the experimental organisms have all been used before and have given good results
E) you need only a single experimental organism; replicates are not needed
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24) Qualitative data ________.
A) are data that are expressed as numbers and tested using statistics
B) can be acquired in the detailed examination of personal interviews or observations
C) have variables that may not have been properly manipulated
D) cannot be used to support or disprove hypotheses
E) cannot be replicated
25) A pharmaceutical company wishes to study a possible new headache medicine. They are
doing human trials with 1,000 volunteers and need to ________.
A) have 10 volunteers in the control group
B) put all women in the control group and all men in the experimental group
C) divide the groups by level of health
D) give all groups the same amount of the new medication
E) control for the type of headache—stress, migraine, or other causes
26) A study’s results are deemed worthy of acceptance into the body of scientific knowledge if
they are published in journals that ________.
A) use the peer review process
B) charge a high fee for acceptance
C) are funded by corporations funding the research
D) meet guidelines advocated by environmentalists or consumer groups
E) conform to current political and religious views
27) ________ can be quantified as the number of individuals of a given species that can be
sustained by the biological productivity in a given area.
A) Carrying capacity
B) Biodiversity index
C) Population size
D) Community structure
E) Distribution density
28) The capacity of a terrestrial or aquatic ecosystem to be biologically productive and to absorb
waste (like carbon dioxide) is called ________.
A) biocapacity
B) carrying capacity
C) bioavailability
D) carrying productivity
E) biomic capacity
29) Ecological footprint is NOT a(n) ________.
A) number used to prove the concept of tragedy of the commons
B) total area that is “used” by a given person (including direct and indirect impacts)
C) measure of environmental impact of an individual
D) area of land and water required to provide raw materials that a person consumes
E) inverse of carrying capacity
30) According to the 2003 data in the textbook, one Canadian has as much impact on
environment as ________.
A) 10 Chinese or 5 citizens of India
B) 10 Chinese or 10 citizens of India
C) 5 Chinese or 10 citizens of India
D) 5 Chinese or 5 citizens of India
E) 1 Chinese or 3 citizens of India
31) Cassandras are ________.
A) an invasive species
B) people who believe technology will find new resources
C) people who predict disaster
D) followers of Plato
E) are a tribe of Australian Aborigines opposed to uranium mining
1.5 True/False Questions
1) The primary goal of science is to positively prove hypotheses.
2) Environmentalism is a scientific approach to understanding environmental problems.
3) Scientists believe that fossil fuel use is contributing to warming of the lower atmosphere.
4) Globalization will have an impact on the development of environmental law as the global
community is interconnected by trade, politics, and the movement of people and species.
5) Over half of Earth’s surface is used for some kind of agriculture.
6) People who maintain that human ingenuity will find ways to make Earth’s resources meet our
needs indefinitely are called “Cassandras.”
1.6 Essay Questions
1) Why is it important to understand our interactions with the environment? What will studying
environmental science enable you to do?
2) Give an example of an environmental problem. Why does the perception of what is an
environmental problem differ from time to time and country to country? Give an example of how
the perception of an environmental problem may have changed.
3) Differentiate between environmental science and environmentalism. Define each term and
explain how they are similar and how they differ.
4) What four transformative events of the past 2.5 million years caused human population size to
increase? Describe each, briefly explaining the contributions that each made to human
population growth. Include the pros and cons of each.
5) Compare and contrast the types of knowledge gained, and the research methods, of the natural
and social sciences when considering environmental problems. Why do both types of disciplines
need to be a part of environmental science?
6) What is a sustainable enterprise? What are its features with regard to, for example, materials
and energy; waste; ecological footprint; and “triple bottom line”?
7) Compare the manipulative and natural experiments: how are they done and what are their
strengths and weaknesses?
8) How does a scientist tests his/her hypothesis?
1.7 Scenario-Based Questions
Read the following scenario and answer the questions below.
Pablo and Johanna have to do a year-long study for their biology course. After some discussion,
they decide to try comparing their dogs and the diet that they feed them. Each has a dog from the
pound, and both dogs are less than one year old. Pablo feeds his shepherd-mix dog a special diet
of wet and dry foods from the local vet, while Johanna uses generic dry kibble from the
supermarket for her bulldog. They want to see which diet results in bigger, healthier, faster-
growing dogs.
1) The independent variable in this study will be ________.
A) the age of the dogs
B) the sex of the dogs
C) the type of food the dogs receive
D) how much the dogs grow
E) the breed of the dogs
2) According to the information given, one dependent variable in this study will be ________.
A) the age of the dogs
B) the sex of the dogs
C) the type of food the dogs receive
D) how much the dogs grow
E) the breed of the dogs
3) When the students write up their initial proposal, the instructor will probably ________.
A) give them an A for thoroughness and allow them to proceed with the experiment
B) tell them that they need at least 100 dogs to do the study
C) tell them that the proposal is impossible and that such a study cannot be done at all
D) give them an F and tell them to start over—it would take many years to do such a study
E) tell them they have some serious problems with the proposal, but the problems can be fixed
4) The reason the instructor gives Pablo and Johanna will include the fact that they have too
many ________.
A) variables that they didn’t control and not enough replicates
B) replicates and not enough variables
C) controlled variables and not enough uncontrolled variables
D) dependent variables and not enough independent variables
E) independent variables and not enough dependent variables
Read the following scenario and answer the questions below.
After meeting with their instructor, Pablo and Johanna know that they need to change their
experimental design. They contact a local puppy farm and arrange to do their study with 3-
month-old litters of pups from four Irish setters, a total of 24 puppies, consisting of 12 females
and 12 males.
5) In order to have two groups of puppies, one set to be the control group and one set to be the
experimental group, Pablo and Johanna should ________.
A) put the 12 females in one group and the 12 males in the other group
B) flip a coin for each dog to see which group it will be in
C) randomly choose one dog for the control group and use the other 23 in the experimental group
D) put six males and six females in each group, with some from each litter in each group
E) put all the puppies from two of the litters in one group and all of the puppies from the other
two litters in the other group
6) Pablo and Johanna should probably run the experiment ________.
A) for one month, weighing and measuring the pups before and after
B) for several months, weighing and measuring the pups before and after
C) for several months, weighing and measuring the pups twice every day
D) for several months, weighing and measuring the pups every week
E) for at least three years, weighing and measuring the pups every week
7) If the puppies in the veterinary diet group gain, on average, 2 kilogram more than those in the
dry kibble group over a four-month period and also seem healthier and more energetic, then
________.
A) Johanna and Pablo have proven that the veterinary diet is best for all dogs
B) there is a probability that the veterinary diet is better than dry kibble for puppies
C) there is a probability that the veterinary diet is better than dry kibble for all dogs
D) there is a probability that the dry kibble is better for puppies
E) they have proven that the dry kibble diet is best for female dogs