AP Environmental Science

2015-2016 Summer AssignmentWelcome to APES!

The summer assignment will give you a brief overview of all of the topics we will go over this year. Over the course of the year we will learn more about the science and social issues associated with each of the topics. There are THREE parts to the summer assignment; all THREE assignments are due on the FIRST day of class (if you receive this assignment at the end of the 2014-2015 school year). Any late assignment can only receive half credit. If you have any questions about this assignment, feel free to email me at lwise@pottstownsd.org. The summer assignment will count for a significant portion of your grade. All work turned in must be your OWN work.

The assignments will be graded as follows:

1. “Home” video questions – 33 points (1 point per question)2. Math Problems – 30 points 3. ScrAPESbook – 75 points (summer assignment portion)

Total Points: 138 Points

“Home” by Yann Arthus-Bertrand Name:_______________________________

Watch the video on YouTube and answer the following questions as you go.

The link to the video is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqxENMKaeCU&feature=c4-videos-u

1. Describe the conditions on early Earth.

2. What happened to the carbon that poisoned the atmosphere?

3. How did the agricultural revolution change the Earth?

4. How has Earth changed in the last 60 years since the use of oil has become more widespread?

5. What is most of the grain in the US used for?

6. What led to the dramatic decline in the biodiversity of agricultural crop species?

7. How many kilos of water does it take to produce 1 kilo of beef?

8. How have cars shaped the way housing is laid out in the US and other developed countries?

9. How much has the volume of international trade increased since 1950?

10. What are your thoughts on how the video portrays Dubai? Is it self-sustainable?

11. Rainforests are cut down to make farmland for which products/crops?

12. What makes the growth of Lagos different from how most other cities grow?

13. Where does the water from Greenland’s melting ice sheet go?

14. Why are the glaciers of mountains so important for the people in the lowlands?

15. What hope does the video offer at the end?

This video project covers many topics that we will discuss in APES this year. Give three specific examples that are portrayed in the video about each of the APES concepts listed below:

All living things are linked.

1.

2.

3.

Developed vs. Developing Countries

1.

2.

3.

Faster and Faster: Human Innovation & Technology

1.

2.

3.

The Carbon Cycle

1.

2.

3.

Climatic Balance

1.

2.

3.

Shortage of Resources

1.

2.

3.

After watching the film, what topics are you most looking forward to learning about this year? What questions do you have?

PREREQUISITE BASIC MATHEMATICAL SKILLS

Percentage

Remember that “percent” literally means divided by 100 Percentage is a measure of the part of the whole, or part divided by whole. For Example: 15 million is what percentage of the US population?

For Example: What is 20% of this $15 bill so that I can give a good tip?

Rates

All of the above are ways to look at rates. The second equation is the easiest way to calculate a rate, especially from looking at a graph. Rates will often be written using the word “per” followed by a unit of time, such as cases per year, grams per minute, or miles per hour. The word “per” means to divide, so miles per gallon is actually the number of miles driven by one gallon.

Rates are calculating how much an amount changes in a given amount of time.

Scientific Notation

Thousand = 103= 1,000 (notice how many zeros there are)

Million = 106= 1,000,000 (300 million people in the US)

Billion = 109= 1,000,000,000 (people on Earth = 7 billion)

Trillion = 1012= 1,000,000,000,000 (National Debt)

When using very large numbers, scientific notation is often easiest to manipulate. For example, the US population is 300 million people or 300x106 or 3x108.

When adding or subtracting, exponents must be the same. Add the numbers in front of the ten and keep that exponent the same.

When multiplying or dividing, multiply or divide the number in front of the ten and add the exponents if multiplying or subtract the exponents if dividing.

Online tutorial: http://www.chem.tamu.edu/class/fyp/mathrev/mr-scnot.html

For Example:

Dimensional Analysis

You should be able to convert any unit into any other unit accurately if given the conversion factor. Online tutorials are available:

http://www.chemprofessor.com/dimension_text.htm

http://www.chem.tamu.edu/class/fyp/mathrev/mr-da.html

Prefixes

Long Division and Multiplication

You should be able to do these calculations by hand, including values with decimals and scientific notation. Many students struggle in this area because CALCULATORS ARE NOT ALLOWED ON THE AP EXAM. Online tutorials are available:

http://www.mathsisfun.com/dividing-decimals.html

http://www.tutors4you.com/tutorialondecimals.htm

Math Practice Problems Name:______________________________

Answer the questions, use a separate sheet of paper to show all work. Write only the answers in the space provided. You are NOT allowed to use a calculator on the AP Exam, do your best to do all calculations by hand.

1. What is ten thousand times one hundred million? Show your work in scientific notation. Give the answer in scientific notation and in words. (3 pts.)

2. A population of deer had 325 individuals. If the population grows by 16% in one year, how many deer will there be the next year? (3 pts.)

3. One year I had 124 AP Environmental Science students and the next year I had 87 Environmental Science students. What percentage did the population of APES students decrease by? (round to the nearest tenth) (3 pts.)

4. Electricity costs 7 cents per kilowatt hour. In one month, one home uses 1.8 megawatt hours of electricity. How much will the electric bill be? (be sure to look at the prefixes chart on the previous page for the conversion of kilo to mega) (3 pts.)

5. Your car gets 21 miles to the gallon and your friend’s car gets 28 miles to the gallon. You decide to go on a road trip to Penn State University, which is 162 miles away. If gas costs $4 per gallon and you decide to split the gas money, how much money will each of you save in gas by driving your friend’s car? (3 pts.)

6. Virginia Beach is about 20 miles wide and 28 miles long. If one inch of rain falls on Virginia Beach, how many cubic feet of rain fell on Virginia Beach? (Hint: convert all units to feet first) (3 pts.)

7. The concentration of mercury in a water supply changes from 10 ppm (parts per million) to 56 ppm over a ten-year period. What is the percentage change of the mercury concentration? (3 pts.)

8. Consider a wind turbine that is rated at 1.5 MW (megawatts) per hour. This means that with sufficiently high winds, it will produce 1.5 MW of 1,500 kW (kilowatts) of power. If this wind turbine runs at its rated power of 100% of the time for a full year, how much energy would it produce in a year? Give your answers in kWh/year (kilowatt hours per year) (3 pts.)

9. SHOW YOUR WORK for the following multiplication and division problems. You can use a calculator to check your work, but I want to see that you understand how to solve these problems by hand. Just like on the AP exam, no credit is given if you don’t show your work. (1 pt. each)

a. 75.3 x 16.9

b. 1964 x 0.718

c. 5.80 x 10-3 x 2.17

d. 2362/71.9

e. 0.08/0.0094

f. 4.60 x 104/0.0530

ScrAPESbookIn environmental science, it is important to know about current issues in the news. One of my goals for this course is to familiarize you with environmental issues that are important to our community, our country, and our world. We will be reading and discussing a variety of current events throughout the school year as well. This is a great opportunity for you to start thinking about the environment and how it affects you. Over the course of the summer, find five recent articles related to Environmental Science. This is an ongoing project and will not be completed until the end of the 1st semester. You will be starting your ScrAPESbook as part of your summer assignment. DO NOT lose these directions as you will need to refer back to them throughout the semester.

Guidelines for Preparing, Organizing, and Completing your ScrAPESbookYou are to create a bound scrapbook style book (style/format of your choice), the cover of the book needs to be decorated creatively using recycled materials you find at home and school (creativity/neatness is important here). A title and your name should be on the front cover of your book. All pages in the journal should be numbered in the lower right hand corner. All writing must be legible and either written in black or blue ink or typed. Do not forget to decorate and make the inside of your book look nice! What goes inside the book?Look through newspapers, magazines, radio transcripts, scientific journals, and the internet for articles about environmental science, with a minimum of 20 articles per semester. For your summer assignment you will be starting your ScrAPESbook with the first 5 articles. Requirements regarding articles:(a) Articles must be the original form from a science-related journal (Scientific American Nature, National Geographic etc.) newspaper, magazine, good internet source (Science Daily, etc.) and the articles should not all be from the same source)

(b) All articles must pertain to Environmental Science and have significant science content. Do not include advertisements, pure opinion pieces, or light reviews of other articles.

(c) The date and source of the article must be included on the page with the article.(d) If the article is too large to fit on one page, cut and paste as needed and put it on more than one page.

(e) Articles should be neatly cut out and taped, stapled, or glued into the journal. Your writing should be on a separate page in front of the article.

Your 1st 14 articles need to be about the following topics, in order (you are required to complete the first 5 articles for your summer assignment). The remaining 6 articles may be about any EnSci topic.

1. Sustainability: Forests, fishing, agriculture, natural resources, steps towards using renewable resources, improvements in recycling, producing less waste as a country, etc.

2. Population: Growth, TFR, Stabilization, Governmental policy to control, education and impact on population growth, birth control methods, etc.

3. Agriculture: U.S. farmers, government incentives, change of harvest, setbacks, national reform, current problems, import/export of goods, new discoveries, etc.

4. Fishing: Regulations, Laws, problems with lack of fish due to environmental reason, weather (El Nino) effecting productivity, overfishing, low GNP for country, aquaculture, etc.

5. Fossil Fuels: Mining, oil depletion, government problem with resources, oil dependency, and coal use, ANWR, conservation efforts, etc.

6. Toxins: Mercury or Lead poisoning (in water, paints, toys)Restaurant food poisoning, Botox in beauty cosmetics, nuclear storage or removal, MSDS, hazards at work due to exposure, recalled toys or household items, etc.

7. Water Use: Michigan Lakes depletion, world use, water deficits in U.S. or other countries, problems/affects with droughts, drinking water issues, projected shortages, etc.

8. Renewable Energy: CAFE standards, renewable energy implementation within company or state, laws, mass transit, increase use of nuclear, hazards or concerns, etc.

9. Air Pollution: indoor air, companies improving quality of office air, acid deposition, smog, remediation or reduction strategies, Clean Air Act or relevant laws, etc.

10. Water Pollution: Pollution in lakes or groundwater, maintaining water quality, sewage or septic systems, toxins, agricultural or mining runoff, effects of water pollution on ecosystems or habitats, etc.

11. Recycle: Companies or business that are making changes. Programs in communities or schools that are implementing new projects, reduction in landfill, incentives, cost-savings, .

12. Land Use: Forest fires, management, overgrazing, deforestation (not only in U.S.), land development, national parks

13. Pesticides: Control of, IPM, laws, problems in agriculture, companies facing serious issues due to pests, invasive species, etc.

14. Global Warming: Changes companies are implementing to reduce emissions. Governmental laws enforcing state or national change to reduce emissions, etc.

15-20. Pick any topic you would like to know more about. Be sure to title your topic clearly so I know what you are writing about.

Format for Current Event Summary/Review (include all of the following components and clearly identify each component – Following the title, label as (b) Summary, (c) Analysis, etc.(a) Title: Clearly list the topic I have assigned (b) Summary: Give a brief summary of the article (1-2 paragraphs)

(c) Analysis (Include and clearly label each of the following parts of your analysis)1. Points of view - Does the article give two different points of view? Yes or No If yes, what are they?

2. Bias - The order in which information is presented and the amount of text devoted to influencing a reader’s opinion is called bias. Is this article biased, and if so, which way is the article biased (slanted)? In your opinion does the author give a positive, negative or neutral view of the environmental science topic? Explain.

3. Controversy - Is there any controversy surrounding this article? If so, briefly state it.

(d) Your perspective? State your perspective on this news article based on your personal knowledge of the topic and your reading of this article.

(e) Affect on you? How does this topic affect you or how does it relate to your life?

Grading

Each article will be graded using the following guidelines. 15 points per article.

Article pertains to the correct topic – ½ point Topic is clearly written in the title of your summary – ½ point Parts a, b, c, d, and e are clearly labeled – ½ point Summary is thorough and covers all important parts of the article – 5 points Parts of the analysis are clearly labeled as 1,2, and 3 – ½ point Analysis is thorough and covers all three areas – 5 points Your perspective is stated and made clear – 2 points The affect the article has on you is stated and made clear – 1 point