AP Environmental Science Review Jeopardy

A ready-made AP Environmental Science exam review board. Copy it free, put it on the projector, and let students buzz in from their phones.

6 categories · 30 clues · Final Jeopardy · everyone buzzes in from their phone

For college and exam prep

Copies all 30 clues into an editor of your own. Free, no account needed.

Every clue on this board

This page is public, so anyone can read the answers — copy the board and swap a few clues before game day.

Ecosystem Structure and Energy Flow

$200
Fungi and bacteria that break down dead organic matter and return nutrients to the soil fill this role.
What are decomposers?
$400
Like the sea otter in kelp forests, this kind of species has an outsized effect on its ecosystem relative to its abundance.
What is a keystone species?
$600
Because they are highly sensitive to change, amphibians often serve as this kind of species, signaling ecosystem health.
What is an indicator species?
$800
This measure is the total rate at which producers capture energy, before subtracting their own respiration.
What is gross primary productivity?
$1,000
MacArthur and Wilson's 1967 theory predicting species richness from an island's size and isolation is called this.
What is island biogeography?

Biogeochemical Cycles

$200
In this process, bacteria convert atmospheric N2 into ammonia that plants can use.
What is nitrogen fixation?
$400
In the water cycle, this release of water vapor through plant stomata returns much of the water on land to the air.
What is transpiration?
$600
In this process, bacteria convert ammonium into nitrite and then nitrate.
What is nitrification?
$800
The largest reservoir in the carbon cycle is found in these, such as limestone.
What are sedimentary rocks?
$1,000
Because its cycle has no significant gas phase and depends on rock weathering, this nutrient often limits growth in fresh water.
What is phosphorus?

Population and Resource Use

$200
This is the largest population an environment can support over the long term.
What is carrying capacity?
$400
Species that produce many offspring with little parental care, like insects, follow this reproductive strategy.
What is r-selection?
$600
By the rule of 70, a population growing at 2 percent per year doubles in this many years.
What is 35?
$800
Replacement-level total fertility in developed countries is about this many children per woman.
What is 2.1?
$1,000
Garrett Hardin's 1968 essay named this problem of individuals overusing a shared resource out of self-interest.
What is the tragedy of the commons?

Air Pollution and Climate

$200
This odorless gas from incomplete combustion binds to hemoglobin more readily than oxygen does.
What is carbon monoxide?
$400
Ground-level ozone and PANs are key parts of this brownish haze formed when sunlight acts on car exhaust.
What is photochemical smog?
$600
In this event, a layer of warm air sits above cooler air near the ground and traps pollutants.
What is a thermal inversion?
$800
Global warming potential is measured against this gas, which is assigned a value of 1.
What is carbon dioxide?
$1,000
Radon, a leading indoor air pollutant, is produced by the radioactive decay of this element in soil and rock.
What is uranium?

Water and Land Pollution

$200
Excess nitrogen and phosphorus runoff feeds algal blooms in this process.
What is eutrophication?
$400
Every summer a large area of low dissolved oxygen called this forms in the Gulf of Mexico near the Mississippi's mouth.
What is a dead zone?
$600
This process makes the concentration of a toxin like mercury rise at each higher trophic level.
What is biomagnification?
$800
This measure of the oxygen microbes use to break down organic matter indicates organic pollution in water.
What is biochemical oxygen demand (BOD)?
$1,000
In a sanitary landfill, this contaminated liquid that seeps through waste is caught by liners and pipes.
What is leachate?

Environmental Policy

$200
This 1973 US law protects listed species and their critical habitat.
What is the Endangered Species Act?
$400
This 1987 international treaty phased out CFCs to protect the stratospheric ozone layer.
What is the Montreal Protocol?
$600
This 1997 agreement set binding greenhouse gas reduction targets for developed countries.
What is the Kyoto Protocol?
$800
Known as Superfund, this 1980 US law funds and forces the cleanup of abandoned hazardous waste sites.
What is CERCLA?
$1,000
This treaty, signed in 1973, regulates international trade in wild animals and plants and their parts.
What is CITES?

Final Jeopardy — Energy Flow

This rule of thumb holds that only about this percentage of energy transfers from one trophic level to the next.

What is 10 percent?

How to run this board

The six categories track the exam's own units reasonably closely: ecosystem structure and energy flow, the biogeochemical cycles that always show up in a free-response question, population and resource use, and both major pollution categories - air and water, land and waste.

The Biogeochemical Cycles column is the one that separates a strong score from an average one on the real exam, so if time is short, prioritize that category over any other.

This board runs long for a single period given the exam's vocabulary density - plan for a full block period, or split it across two shorter sessions with Final Jeopardy as the second day's opener.

More from the library

Spotted a clue that's wrong or out of date? Tell us and we'll fix the board. Or start from a blank board and write your own.