Environmental Inventory and Spatial Relationships

Required Materials

Instructions

In this exercise you will use maps in your textbook and sites on the World Wide Web to gather data for an environmental inventory. The inventory will help you explore spatial variations of selected environmental phenomena. To start, go to the Environmental Inventory Sheet web page and print it. Use your textbook and links to data to fill in the Environmental Inventory table. Suggested maps and their location in the text is given on the inventory sheet. Once your inventory is complete, come back to this page to answer the questions below. Plot the locations of the cities on the world map in your lab manual.

Enter your answers in the boxes below each question. Send your answers to your instructor by clicking the "Submit Assignment" button.  You will receive a copy of your answers via email, contact me if you don't get them.  I'll link the answers to the course outline after the due date. No late exercises will be accepted. Feel free to ask me questions via email at mritter@uwsp.edu

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1. Compare and contrast the climate features (temperature, temperature range, annual precipitation) between each station. Which one has the largest temperature range?

2. Does there seem to be any relationship between location (coastal vs. interior location and / or high latitude vs low latitude) and temperature range? If so, what is it?

3. How does the biome in which Irkutsk is located differ from that of Manaus? (You might want to consult your textbook.)

4.Oxisol soils are found in the Amazon River basin where Manaus is located. Look up oxisol soil in your textbook and provide a brief description.

5. How does the soil type in Amazon River Basin compare to that found near Milwaukee, WI (You might want to consult your textbook for a description of the soils.)?

6. Soil weathering is the physical and chemical alteration of the material that makes up a soil. Think about what environmental/climatic conditions determine chemical reactions. Can you speculate on why the soil in the Amazon Basin is so highly weathered?

7. Where else do you find soils like those in the Amazon Basin?