pH - a scale to measure for acids and bases
Acid - 0-7 on the pH scale
Base - 8-14 on the pH scale
Indicator - a substance used to help determine acid or base
Acid Rain - precipitation with a pH of 5.6 or lower
Ecosystem - living and nonliving things in a particular place that interact
Environment - living and nonliving things that surround an organism
Habitat - a place where an organism lives
Niche- a specific job, role, or function of an organism in an ecosystem
Producer - an organism that gets its energy from the sun, they make their own food
Consumer - an organism that cannot make its own food, it must eat other organisms, gets its energy from others
Decomposer - an organism that eats dead materials
Scavenger - feeds on dead animals that predators kill
Autotroph - synonym for producer, gets it energy from the sun
Heterotroph - synonym for consumer, cannot make its own food
Predator - hunts another living thing
Prey - the hunted
Carnivore - meat eater
Omnivore - plant and meat eater
Herbivore - plant eater
Food chain - the feeding relationship in an ecosystem
Food web - the feeding relationship between many food chains
Abiotic - nonliving factors in an ecosystem
Biotic - living factors in an ecosystem
Biodegradable - something that can break up into its natural state and return to the soil
Recycle - to use certain garbage material in a new way
Reuse - to use certain garbage material again
Reduce - to lower the amount of garbage
Landfill - a place to put garbage, underground, and covered up
Solid Waste Management - a system of removing garbage from homes and businesses
Pollution - when garbage and refuse comes into an environment
Oil Spill - when oil has polluted an environment
Toxic - poisonous
Ecology - the scientific study of the relationship between living things and the environment
Diversity - differences in a population
Organism - one living thing
Population - several of the same organism in an ecosystem
Community - different types of populations in an ecosystem