Activity 2.2 Part 2

Activity 2.2 Part 2

Multiple Choice

How do plants affect the water flow/water cycle in the environment?

• Plants make the water disappear.

• Plants slow down water movement due to absorption through their roots.

• There is not difference in water flow/cycle when vegetation is present or absent.

Open Ended

If chemicals are spilled in the environment or water is contaminated, how do you think those things will affect ecosystem health?

We will watch the video on IQWST for Activity 2.2

Open Ended

Why do you think the carnation absorbed the food coloring, but did NOT absorb the oil?

The food coloring represents nutrients in a healthy ecosystem. Plants absorb water and nutrients through their roots.

The oil represents contamination, like an oil spill. The oil blocks/clogs the plant’s system for absorption.

Open Ended

How is this activity similar to what happens with plants and nutrients in the environment?

Plants absorb nutrients to grow.  If there is contamination like an oil spill, then the plants can’t absorb nutrients, and will die.

Open Ended

What do you know about recycling?

What does it mean to recycle?

Why do people recycle?

Why is recycling good for the environment?

Answer any one question.

Multiple Choice

Recycling is defined as the action or process of converting waste into reusable material. The process we observed is called “nutrient recycling”.

What could it mean for nutrients to recycle?

• It means the nutrients are taken out for commercial use.

• It means the flow of nutrients between living and nonliving parts of the environment.

• It means nutrients are created by living and nonliving parts of the environment.

Plants take up nutrients available in the environment and use them to make their own food and, so plants are “recycling” nutrients.

Once a plant dies and decomposes, the nutrients return to the soil for other plants or animals.

How can harmful chemicals or bacteria dangerously disrupt this process?

How runoff pollution can enter our food.

Open Ended

Overhead photo of pig farm. 4 barns in foreground, waste pool in center, stream in background.

What happens in a flood at this location?

The Role of Vegetation

Compare natural environment to urban. 

We have blocked the path for water to absorb. 

Notice the surface runoff arrow gets larger, and the groundwater arrow is smaller.

• 2 growing regions, Yuma, AZ and Salinas, CA. 

• They each grow in a different season. It is thought that the contamination comes from runoff from cattle fields, but has not been proven.

• romaine is a head of lettuce, not individual leaves....may get trapped

• Contamination may also happen in processing.

Homework

Please answer the Making Sense Quesions assigned on Google Classroom for Activity 2.2 Part II