Cycles In Nature

1. Cycles In Nature

2. What is MATTER? • What are the phases, or states, of matter? • Give 3 examples of matter: • Give 3 examples of non matter:

3. Matter in the form of nutrients also moves through the organisms at each trophic level. But matter cannot be replenished like the energy from the sunlight.

4. Elements that make up the bodies of organisms alive today are the same atoms that have been on Earth since life began. Matter is constantly recycled.

5. Were going to learn about three different types of cycles that occur natural within our ecosystems. 1. water cycle 2. carbon cycle 3. nitrogen cycle

6. Draw the water cycle

7. Evaporation • Evaporation is when the sun heats up water in rivers or lakes or the ocean and turns it into vapor or steam. The water vapor or steam leaves the river, lake or ocean and goes into the air.

8. Transpiration • Do plants sweat? • Well, sort of.... people perspire (sweat) and plants transpire.  Transpiration is the process by which plants lose water out of their leaves.  Transpiration gives evaporation a bit of a hand in getting the water vapor back up into the air.

9. Condensation • Water vapor in the air gets cold and changes back into liquid, forming clouds. This is called condensation. • You can see the same sort of thing at home... pour a glass of cold water on a hot day and watch what happens.  Water forms on the outside of the glass.  That water didn't somehow leak through the glass!  It actually came from the air.  Water vapor in the warm air, turns back into liquid when it touches the cold glass.

11. Precipitation • Precipitation occurs when so much water has condensed that the air cannot hold it anymore.  The clouds get heavy and water falls back to the earth in the form of rain, hail, sleet or snow.

12. Collection • When water falls back to earth as precipitation, it may fall back in the oceans, lakes or rivers or it may end up on land.  When it ends up on land, it will either soak into the earth and become part of the “ground water” that plants and animals use to drink or it may run over the soil and collect in the oceans, lakes or rivers where the cycle starts all over again.

13. Explain how the water cycle works in a few paragraphs. I will be looking for the following key terms: 1. condensation 2. transpiration 3. precipitation 4. evaporation 5. respiration

14. Matter is cycled, Energy is NOT!

15. Carbon cycle • The process in which carbon is passed from one organism to another, then to the abiotic community, and finally back to plants. Carbon travels through different trophic levels in an environment.

16. Organic: contains carbon Inorganic: no carbon

17. Draw the carbon cycle

18. Answer questions 1-5 on page 13.

20. All life requires nitrogen-compounds, e.g., proteins and nucleic acids. • Air, which is 79% nitrogen gas (N2), is the major reservoir of nitrogen.

21. But most organisms cannot use nitrogen in this form. • Plants must secure their nitrogen in "fixed" form, i.e., incorporated in compounds such as: • nitrate ions (NO3−) • ammonia (NH3) • urea (NH2)2CO

22. Animals secure their nitrogen (and all other) compounds from plants (or animals that have fed on plants). • Four processes participate in the cycling of nitrogen through the biosphere: nitrogen fixation decay nitrification denitrification