Answer key to Short-answer questions on Exam 1

NOTE: these are actual answers written by your fellow students.

1. The "environment" is the conditions or circumstances surrounding an organism, including social and cultural considerations. As humans, we exist in both the natural world and the one of our creation. This is the environment studied in environmental science.

2. I would ask: (1) What are you basing your conclusions on – scientific evidence, solid theory, history, hearsay, values? (2) What business and/or social loyalties might be influencing your stance? (3) Are you the right person to talk to about this – do you have knowledge, authority, reliability? (4) Does your assurance of minimal possibility of transfer follow logically from a firm, factual premise? (5) Within what context are you viewing this situation, and what does "minimal chance" mean to you?
   
   What is the person’s background? Are they a geneticist or have other credentials which would make them knowledgeable about the subject? What are, if any, their biases and assumptions? Does the person dstand to benefit from supporting this type of gene incorporation? Are all areas of concern or terms clearly defined? What do they mean by "minimal" chance of genes being transferred?
3. Increased wealth can lead to improved environmental conditions by allowing new technologies to be developed that could provide cleaner drinking water or lead to more sustainable agriculture. Increased wealth can lead to increased money for education and higher literacy rates, which can lead to increasing awareness of environmental issues. Increasing wealth can also, however, lead to deterioration of environmental conditions by leading to increased consumption and pollution as more things become available with wealth.
   
   One way that an increase in wealth can actually deteriorate the environment is the accompaniment of increased consumption which, in turn leads to increased production and pollution. But with an even greater increase in wealth, there is the opportunity to invest in environment-helping technology. Another way that increased wealth can lead to improved conditions is that it allows investment in things that address the root solutions, like improving water supplies and education.
   

4. Plants can only use nitrate or ammonium forms of nitrogen. Lightning in the atmosphere provides a source of nitrates. Nitrogen-fixing bacteria convert gaseous nitrogen into usable forms within plants and soils. Humans fix nitrogen industrially to make fertilizers which plants can use.
   
5. Much more sulfur is being converted from solid/slowly-cycling forms into more rapidly-cycling gaseous forms by the burning of fossil fuels. Nitrogen is cycling from gaseous N₂ into forms usable by plants by the industrial fixation of nitrogen to produce fertilizers, and from organic forms into volatile forms by the burning of trees and fossil fuels.
   
6. Not all of the energy strikes plants; some energy is reflected by the plants rather than absorbed; not all the energy (wavelengths) that strikes plants is usable for photosynthesis; not all of the energy absorbed in photosynthesis is converted into chemical bonds (2^nd law of thermodynamics); some energy that is fixed by plants is used in respiration by the plants; not all plants are eathen by the primary consumers; the primjary consumers lose some energy in respiration; not all of the energy in the plants can be used by the primary consumers; not all of the primary consumers are eaten by the secondary consumers; etc., etc., etc.