A power plant burns coal to make electricity, and smoke pours from its stacks all day long. What effect does burning this fuel have on the air around the plant?

A new dam is built across a river to make electricity from the moving water. Water piles up behind the dam. What happens to the land upstream?

Salmon swim up a river each year to lay their eggs where they hatched. Then a tall dam is built across that river. What effect does the dam have on the salmon?

Wind is a renewable energy source, but a wind farm still changes the place where it stands. What effect can the spinning blades have on wildlife?

A company covers a wide stretch of desert with solar panels that catch sunlight. What effect does this have on the desert land under and around the panels?

A ship carrying oil across the ocean tears open, and the oil spreads out over the water. What effect does the spilled oil have on ocean animals?

Machines strip away the trees and soil of a hillside to dig a wide open pit and reach the coal buried underneath. What effect does the mining have on the animals living there?

Wind and sunlight are renewable energy sources, but building the equipment that collects them still changes the land where it is placed.

A town can heat its buildings by burning natural gas or by using electricity made from sunlight. Which of the two sends smoke and pollution into the air while it is used?

Harmful smoke and other material that burning fuel adds to the air, water, or land is called ___.

Some families cut down trees and burn the wood as fuel for cooking and heating. What effect does cutting many trees for firewood have on the forest?

Smoke from a power plant that burns fuel can be carried by the wind to places far from the plant.

A power plant burns natural gas piped in from underground to spin turbines and make electricity. What effect does burning the gas have on the air near the plant?

Workers clear a patch of forest and drill new wells to reach natural gas trapped underground. What effect does clearing the land for the wells have on the animals that lived there?

A family heats their home all winter by burning wood in a stove. What effect does this have on the air right around the house?

A company clears trees and levels the ground on a hillside to drill for oil trapped underground. Which fuel that many cars burn is made from this oil?

A town near a lake full of fish needs a new power plant. One plan burns coal. Another builds a wind farm on a nearby hill. Which plan is less likely to pollute the lake's water?

Planners must choose between building a wind farm on a ridge or damming a river for hydroelectric power. Which choice stops making electricity on calm days when the air is still?

A town can heat its homes with heating oil brought in by ship or with electricity made by solar panels. Which energy source formed from the remains of living things buried millions of years ago?

A homeowner can heat with a stove that burns wood or a stove that burns coal. Which fuel can be replaced by growing more of it?

A city must pick between a coal-burning power plant and a hydroelectric dam to supply electricity. Which choice is more likely to add soot and gases to the city's air?

A farm can heat its greenhouse by burning natural gas or by using an electric heater run only by solar panels, with no batteries. Which choice cannot make heat at night?

A logging crew cuts trees on a hillside to sell as firewood. Plan A plants a new tree for every tree cut. Plan B plants no new trees. Which plan keeps the forest growing for years to come?

An island community is choosing between a diesel generator that burns oil and a wind turbine to make electricity. Which choice needs regular fuel deliveries by boat that could spill into the ocean?

A river town is deciding between building a coal plant or a solar farm. Which choice adds carbon dioxide, a gas that traps heat and warms Earth, while it makes electricity?

A thick brown haze hangs over a city on most days, and doctors say it is harder for people to breathe outside. What is most likely adding to the haze?

Workers build a set of small, water-filled steps beside a river dam. The next year, many more salmon reach the river above the dam. What most likely explains this?

A stream next to a busy parking lot gets a rainbow-colored shine on top after every rain, and fewer fish live in it each year. What most likely explains this?

After an oil spill, workers float long barriers on the water around the oil. A week later, far less oil reaches the nearby beach. What most likely explains this?

A dam on a river makes electricity year after year, and the lake behind it keeps refilling. What most likely keeps refilling the lake?

A wind farm shuts down its turbines during the weeks when big flocks of birds fly through. That year, far fewer dead birds are found below the blades. What most likely explains this?

A family's electric car gives off no exhaust. But when many electric cars in town charge at night, the town's coal power plant gives off more smoke. What most likely explains this?

A pond near an old coal mine has orange-colored water and no fish living in it anymore. What most likely explains this?

The air in a valley turns gray and hazy every winter, right when many homes in the valley start burning coal to heat their houses. What most likely explains the winter haze?

A city puts solar panels on the roofs of its schools and stores instead of building a solar farm on open desert land. How does this help desert animals?

Solar panels last about 25 to 30 years before they wear out. What is one drawback when a large solar farm's old panels wear out?

Building a dam for hydroelectric power turns a fast-flowing river into a wide, still lake. What is one cost for river fish that need fast, moving water?

A wind farm needs long service roads and large concrete bases built into open land to hold up each turbine. What is one drawback of installing the turbines this way?

Making solar panels requires mining metals and minerals out of the ground and processing them at factories. What is one environmental cost of making solar panels this way?

Wind turbines near a farmhouse make a steady whooshing noise as their blades spin all day and night. What is one drawback of building the turbines so close to homes?