NB G4 Scientific Literacy flashcards
NB G4 Scientific Literacy · Build recall with a focused review session.
32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.
- Photosynthesis
- The process by which green plants and some other organisms use sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide to make food and release oxygen.
- Producer
- An organism, usually a plant or alga, that makes its own food using energy from sunlight or chemicals and serves as food for consumers.
- Decomposer
- An organism such as a fungus or bacterium that breaks down dead plants and animals, recycling nutrients into the soil and ecosystem.
- Food web
- A model showing several connected food chains in an ecosystem, indicating how energy and matter move among producers, consumers, and decomposers.
- Adaptation
- An inherited trait or behavior that helps an organism survive and reproduce in its environment, such as camouflage, thick fur, or migration.
- Life cycle
- The stages an organism passes through from beginning to reproduction and death, including growth and changes such as metamorphosis in some animals.
- Ecosystem
- A community of living organisms interacting with one another and with nonliving parts such as water, air, soil, and sunlight in a particular area.
- Matter
- Anything that has mass and takes up space; matter can exist as a solid, liquid, or gas and is made of particles.
- Physical change
- A change in size, shape, or state of matter that does not create a new substance, such as melting ice or tearing paper.
- Chemical change
- A change in which one or more new substances with different properties form, often shown by color change, gas, heat, or light.
- Speed
- A measure of how fast an object moves, calculated by dividing the distance traveled by the time taken, such as meters per second.
- Balanced forces
- Forces that are equal in size and opposite in direction, so they cancel and do not change an object's motion.
- Friction
- A force that opposes motion when two surfaces touch, converting some motion energy into heat and slowing moving objects.
- Energy transfer
- The movement of energy from one object or place to another, such as heat flowing from a warm object to a cooler one.
- Rock cycle
- The ongoing processes by which rocks change among igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic types through melting, cooling, weathering, erosion, compaction, and heat or pressure.
- Erosion
- The movement of weathered rock, soil, and sediment by agents such as water, wind, ice, or gravity from one place to another.
- Water cycle
- The continuous movement of water through evaporation, condensation, precipitation, runoff, and collection, driven mainly by energy from the Sun.
- Weather
- The short-term condition of the atmosphere at a particular place, including temperature, precipitation, wind, and cloud cover.
- Earth's rotation
- The spinning of Earth on its axis, taking about 24 hours and causing day and night as different sides face the Sun.
- Moon phases
- The changing shapes of the Moon's sunlit portion seen from Earth as the Moon orbits Earth, including new, crescent, quarter, gibbous, and full phases.
- Hypothesis
- A testable prediction or possible explanation based on prior knowledge that can be supported or rejected by observations and data from an experiment.
- Independent variable
- The factor that a scientist deliberately changes in an experiment to observe its effect on the dependent variable.
- Dependent variable
- The factor that is measured or observed in an experiment; it may change in response to the independent variable.
- Controlled variables
- The conditions kept the same for all trials in an experiment so that changes in the dependent variable can be attributed to the independent variable.
- Qualitative data
- Observations described with words or categories rather than numbers, such as color, texture, smell, or behavior.
- Line graph
- A graph that displays data points connected by lines, useful for showing how a measured value changes over time or across a continuous range.
- Engineering design
- A process for solving problems by defining a need, planning and building a solution, testing it, and improving it based on evidence.
- Renewable resource
- A natural resource that can be replenished within a human lifetime, such as sunlight, wind, flowing water, or sustainably managed forests.
- Nonrenewable resource
- A natural resource that forms very slowly over long periods and can be used up, such as coal, oil, natural gas, or minerals.
- Pollution
- The addition of harmful substances or forms of energy to air, water, or land that can damage ecosystems and human health.
- Conservation
- The careful use and protection of natural resources so they last longer and remain available, often through reducing, reusing, and recycling materials.
- Trade-off
- A balance between benefits and drawbacks when choosing a technology or action; improving one outcome may cause a less desirable effect elsewhere.