Earth Science Study Guide
EAR 105 extra-credit study guide.
This is both a study guide and an extra credit assignment worth 10 points on your exam! Using your class notes and the book, please answer the following questions with words or with sketches. Use this as a study guide. Remember, it will count as extra credit toward your test grade.
You may work in groups of 4 or less. If you do work in groups, all names go on ONE copy that is handed to me. You may work on separate sheets of paper, or answer using this document in a word processor.
1. List the sciences that make up Earth science.
Geology, oceanography, meteorology, astronomy.
2. How is a scientific hypothesis different from a scientific theory? A hypothesis is a tentative but untested explanation, while a scientific theory is attested and confirmed hypothesis. A hypothesis may not work, but a theory must work.
3. List the basic steps followed in many scientific investigations. Curiosity—observation—interpretation—hypothesize—test (experiments)—re-examine
4. How old is Earth, and how do we measure its age? Earth is 4.6 billion years old. We use radioactive decay to measure its age.
5. What are the two kinds of ways that we talk about how old things are? Give an example of each method of determining age. 1. Radioactive decay—Uranium 2. Geologic time scale (geology structure)—younger staffs cut across old staffs.
6. Name and briefly outline the theory that describes the formation of our solar system. Nebular hypothesis: The birth of our solar system, which began as a cloud of dust and gas called a nebula, started to gravitationally collapse. The nebula contracted into rotating disk that a heated by the conversion of gravitational energy into thermal energy. Cooling of the nebular cloud caused rocky and metallic material to condense into tiny solid particles. Repeated collisions caused the dust-size particles to gradually coalesce into asteroid-size bodies. Within a few million years these bodies accreted into
This is both a study guide and an extra credit assignment worth 10 points on your exam! Using your class notes and the book, please answer the following questions with words or with sketches. Use this as a study guide. Remember, it will count as extra credit toward your test grade.
You may work in groups of 4 or less. If you do work in groups, all names go on ONE copy that is handed to me. You may work on separate sheets of paper, or answer using this document in a word processor.
1. List the sciences that make up Earth science.
Geology, oceanography, meteorology, astronomy.
2. How is a scientific hypothesis different from a scientific theory? A hypothesis is a tentative but untested explanation, while a scientific theory is attested and confirmed hypothesis. A hypothesis may not work, but a theory must work.
3. List the basic steps followed in many scientific investigations. Curiosity—observation—interpretation—hypothesize—test (experiments)—re-examine
4. How old is Earth, and how do we measure its age? Earth is 4.6 billion years old. We use radioactive decay to measure its age.
5. What are the two kinds of ways that we talk about how old things are? Give an example of each method of determining age. 1. Radioactive decay—Uranium 2. Geologic time scale (geology structure)—younger staffs cut across old staffs.
6. Name and briefly outline the theory that describes the formation of our solar system. Nebular hypothesis: The birth of our solar system, which began as a cloud of dust and gas called a nebula, started to gravitationally collapse. The nebula contracted into rotating disk that a heated by the conversion of gravitational energy into thermal energy. Cooling of the nebular cloud caused rocky and metallic material to condense into tiny solid particles. Repeated collisions caused the dust-size particles to gradually coalesce into asteroid-size bodies. Within a few million years these bodies accreted into