Discuss the importance of carbon as our carbon based life form.
Define the carbon cycle and relate its importance in the biogeochemical cycles.
List the 7 processes that drive the cycle, and discuss each one individually.
Outline the importance of combustion to the levels of greenhouse gases. Discuss the pooling of carbon compounds in calcium carbonate formed when carbon dioxide reacts with a calcium ion.

Discuss the importance of carbon as our carbon based life form. Show how carbon atoms bond to other carbon atoms to form chains of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats.
List the 7 processes that drive the carbon cycle. Discuss each in detail, and using a diagram representing the carbon cycle, show where each fits in the cycle. Have a discussion regarding climate change due to human intervention in the carbon cycle.

Outline and discuss how anthropogenic effects alter the hydrologic cycle. Starting with the premise that Earth is a closed system with respect to matter, elicit, list and discuss how each environmental change affects the environment. These will involve: harvesting trees, transpiration, clear cutting, paving, runoff, ground water, algae bloom, fish kills, water diversion, irrigation, and industrialization.

Discussion and outline concerning the effects humans have on altering the hydrologic cycle,
Elicit, outline, and discuss the effects harvesting trees has on transpiration. Discuss the effect of clear cutting on runoff and flooding. Elicit the effect runoff has on nutrient levels in th lakes and ponds causing algae bloom and fish kills.
Discuss the effects paving has on runoff and evaporation, along with diverting of water by damming and increased irrigation and industrialization.

Discuss the importance of nutrient cycling in the biosphere.
Follow the path of a carbon atom in your nail originating in the tooth of a dinosaur.
Outline and discuss the hydrologic cycle, from evaporation to precipitation. Discuss transpiration and evapotranspiration.

Define these as nutrient cycles. Discuss how a carbon atom present in your fingernail could have originated from the tooth of a dinosaur.
Outline and discuss the hydrologic cycle, from evaporation through precipitation, include tranpiration and evapotranspiration. Review HW answers

Discuss digestible and non digestible energy sources. Elicit the uses that the digestible plays in life activities and temperature regulation.
Discuss ecological efficiency, and the 10% average.
Calculate from a pyramid the amount of biomass available at each trophic level, from a given amount and the % efficiency at each level.
Discuss productivity and energy harvesting between an herbivore and a primary consumer using the same amount of land for the same period of time.
Introduce the units of kilocalories for measurement of heat energy

Not all energy contained in a particular trophic level is in a usable form.
From the above statement, discuss what happens to undigestible plant and animal parts. Discuss the outcome of digestible plant and animal parts.
Determine that what is left over after energy usage for life activities, and lost as heat, can become biomass for an organism on a higher trophic level. The proportion of consumed energy than can be transferred is referred to as ecological efficiency.
Using a pyramid of biomass and indicating the efficiency at each level, determine the Kilocalories of energy which are transferrable from each level.
Discuss the energy harvest if all humans were vegetarians, compared to the amount needed to feed cattle in the same Hectare of land.

Discuss the methods of determining the GPP and NPP of a system.
Indicate how these measurements are used to calculate and determine the productivity of a system, and compare it to other systems.
Introduce the units of measurement and introduce a problem which utilizes these units to determine the GPP and NPP.
Introduce standing crop and productivity.

Calculate the GPP from NPP and cellular respiration.
List and discuss the 5 main factors which determine the productivity of a system.
Define standing crop and use examples.
Define productivity and use examples.
Elicit whether specific systems would show low productivity or high productivity, standard crop amount and ecological efficiency.