Name: _________________________

This take-home learning experience will be due at the beginning of class next week. You are allowed to use whatever class notes you have taken, or handouts I have given you. You are not allowed to work with other students. If your answer matches someone else’s answer, neither student will receive credit for the answer. If you do not understand the question, you should contact Tiare by Wednesday to receive help. Your best 15 answers will be graded, your worst 2 answers will be thrown out.

1) Describe an adaptation for each of the following parts that allows beavers to live in water:

Glands

Tail

Feet

Nose

Ears

Eyes

Mouth

Fur

2) How do beavers survive the winter?

3) A pair of beavers in Alaska built a dam on a creek running alongside a college dormitory. As a result of the pond created by the dam, the dorm’s parking lot flooded. The college president called the campus maintenance staff and said a flooded parking lot is unacceptable – students must be able to park there. Besides live trapping the beavers and relocating them, create a solution the staff can employ.

4) We learned the following concepts of nature awareness: baseline, bird alarms, concentric rings of disturbance, wide angle vision, focused listening, fox walking, patterns and camouflage, and search image. Why do these techniques come so naturally to us, or why do we all have the capability of using these techniques?

5) Why was the series of questions Deb asked you (about what you saw when you walk out your front door that morning) called the "tourist test"?

6) List at least two reasons why you shouldn’t pick up a rough skinned newt.

7) In your own words, describe the transformation male rough skinned newts are going through at this time of the year. Describe the breeding ritual of the newts.

8) A watershed is an area that collects, stores, and releases water.

Name at least one way a watershed collects water:

Name at least one way a watershed stores water:

Name at least one way a watershed releases water:

9) Why does runoff occur? Why should we be concerned with urban runoff?

10) What is a hydrograph?

Lag time is the time interval between the peak in the rainfall and the stream’s discharge peak. Label the lag time on the hydrograph to the left.

11) In the hydrograph, explain why the dotted line discharge (the forest or countryside) differs from the solid line (the urban area)?

12) What causes turbidity? What is the effect of turbidity on aquatic organisms?

13) Show how you would measure the length and width of one of the tracks to the left by drawing in the appropriate lines.

Describe the toe pads of the tracks:

What animals might these tracks belong to, based on the toe pads?

14) What are the three things that affect track appearance?

15) Describe at least 4 characteristics of a red fox track.

16) Explain how a beaver dam affects the following water quality parameters:

Temperature

Dissolved oxygen

Turbidity

17) How does a beaver dam change the organisms found in the riparian zone (the area around and in the original stream)?