Mr. Bouyer Curriculum Glossary       Grading       Science Timeline       MSDS            Lesson Calendar    Positive Thinking    Goals    Class Concepts        History of Science            Class Site            Teks

C

C₃ plants - The most common type of plant, producing 3-carbon organic acids as their first stable products.
C₄ plants - Plants that produce 4-carbon organic acids as their first stable products, with photosynthetic energy conversion efficiency as much as 50% higher than in C₃ plants.
Calculator - An electronic device used for manipulating numbers.
Calorimeter - An insulated container used for measuring temperature changes.
Calyx - A term that refers to all the sepals of a flower together.
Calorie - The amount of heat needed to raise the temperature of one gram of water by one Celsius degree; a measure of the energy available in food.
Cancer - Uncontrolled division of cells.
Candela - The SI base unit for light intensity.
Canines - Pointed teeth for puncturing and tearing.
Capillaries - Small blood vessels that connect arteries and veins.
Capillary rise - The rise of a liquid in a tube of small diameter due to adhesion forces.
Capillary water - Water found in the smaller pores of soil that is most often available to plant roots.
Capsule - A thick, gel-like, protective coating on some bacteria cells; a dry fruit with several carpels, splitting lengthwise when ripe.
Carapace - The dorsal shell of turtle-like animals.
Carbohydrate - Organic compounds composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen.
Carbon-Oxygen Cycle - The movement of carbon and oxygen in the Earth's biosphere.
Carcinogen - An agent that leads to the production of a cancer cell.
Carcinoma - Cancer of the skin or nerve cells.
Carnivores - Consumers that eat only animals.
Carrying capacity - The maximum population density that an environment can support for an extended time.
Caryopsis - Grain, a dry fruit with 1-seed, the fruit coat fused with seed coat.
Catalyst - A substance that changes the rate of a chemical reaction without being changed in the reaction.
Cations - Ions with a positive charge.
Catkin - A spike or raceme composed of unisexual flowers without petals.
Caudal - Refers to the tail.
Caulescent - Ordinary plant structure with leafy stems and flowers growing at their nodes.
Cell membrane - A complex barrier of lipid molecules separating a cell from its external environment.
Cell theory - A theory relating to the importance of cells in living things.
Cellulose - A complex polysaccharide forming the cell wall in plant cells.
Celsius - The SI temperature scale used in most scientific measurements.
Cementum - The material that binds the enamel to the dentine of a tooth.
Centi - The SI prefix for ¹/₁₀₀.
Central nervous system - Includes the brain and spinal cord.
Centrifugal force - An apparent force that appears only in rotating frames of reference.
Centripetal acceleration - Acceleration toward the center of a circular path.
Cephalization - The concentration of sensory and brain structures in the anterior end of an animal.
Cephalothorax - The fused head and thorax region of some segmented animals.
Cerebellum - The lower back of the brain, responsible for muscle coordination and balance.
Cerebrum - The largest portion of the human brain, responsible for major brain functions.
Charles' Law - The volume of a fixed amount of gas varies directly with the temperature of the gas.
Chelicerae - Pincer-like mouthparts; arachnid fangs.
Chemical digestion - Breaking complex chemicals into simple ones.
Chemical equilibrium - A dynamic system in which chemical changes are taking place in such a way that there is no overall change in the composition of the system.
Chemical property - Any characteristic that describes how one material interacts with another material.
Chemical reaction - A process in which substances change into other substances.
Chemical symbol - A one or two letter shorthand used to represent elements.
Chemistry - The study of the structure and properties of matter.
Chemoautotrophs - Bacteria that use energy from chemical reactions to make their own food.
Chemoreceptors - Function as organs of smell and taste in earthworms and some other organisms.
Chemotherapy - Using chemicals injected into the blood to kill cancer cells.
Chemotropism - A plant growth response to chemicals.
Chitin - A tough calcium containing compound forming the exoskeleton of arthropods; forms the cell wall of fungi cells.
Chlorophyll - The green, light-absorbing pigment that makes photosynthesis possible in plants.
Chloroplasts - The sites of photosynthesis in plants.
Chorion - The amniote egg membrane that lines the shell.
Chromatid - One of two identical halves of a chromosome.
Chromatophores - Structures containing pigment to provide color patterns.
Chromosome - A coiled, double rod-shaped form of condensed DNA that forms during cell division.
Chromosome mutation - A mutation involving some piece of a chromosome.
Chrysalis - The protective case in which a butterfly pupa becomes an adult.
Circuit breaker - A switch that flips open when too much current flows.
Cladistics - A system of phylogenetic classification that uses shared derived characters to establish theoretical evolutionary relationships.
Cladogram - A phylogenetic tree based on a cladistic analysis.
Classification - The grouping of organisms based on characteristics.
Clevage - A term representing the rapid division of zygote cells.
Climate - The long-term average conditions of the atmosphere.
Climax community - The community that will remain stable in a given area.
Cloaca - A cavity which collects deposits from intestine, urinary bladder, and sex organs.
Clone - An artificial duplication of genes.
Cocci - A term used to indicate round bacterial cells.
Cocoon - The protective case in which a moth pupa becomes an adult.
Cochlea - The coiled, fluid-filled cavity of the human inner ear.
Coefficients - The large numbers in front of chemical formulas in a chemical equation, representing the number of molecules.
Coelacanth - A fish that has paddle-like fins with a fleshy base.
Coelom - An animal body cavity.
Coevolution - Two or more species changing because of changes in a species with which they are interacting.
Collenchyma - Elongated plant cells with uneven, flexible cell walls.
Colloid - A homogeneous mixture with solute particles larger than a solution, but smaller than a suspension.
Colon - Another name for the large intestine.
Combined Gas Law - A gas law used for calculations when both temperature and pressure change.
Combustion reaction - A hydrocarbon reacts with oxygen, producing carbon dioxide and water.
Commensalism - A symbiotic relationship in which one organism benefits from another organism while that organism neither benefits nor is harmed.
Common Ion Effect - The addition of a substance containing an ion already at equilibrium in a saturated solution will shift the equilibrium toward the undissolved substance.
Community - A group of interacting populations.
Competition - Organisms using resources and reducing the availability of those resources to other organisms.
Competitive Exclusion Principle - The competition between populations of two species for the same limiting resource eventually leads to the elimination of one of the species populations.
Complete flower - A flower with sepals, petals, stamens, and pistils.
Compound eye - An eye composed of many individual lenses.
Compound leaf - A leaf with more than one blade on a single petiole.
Compounds - Pure substances made up of more than one element.
Computer - An electronice device that processes information.
Concentrated - A solution with a large amount of solute.
Concentration - A comparison of the amount of solute dissolved in an amount of solvent.
Condensation - The changing of a gas to a liquid.
Conduction - The movement of heat from one substance to another by direct contact of molecules.
Conductors - Materials that easily allow the flow of an electric current; nerve cells that transmit information from receptors to the central nervous system.
Cones - Nerve cells in the eye that are sensitive to a particular primary color.
Conjoined twins - Twins that share some body parts.
Conjugate acid - The particle formed when a Bronsted-Lowery base accepts a proton.
Conjugate base - The particle that remains after a Bronsted-Lowery acid gives up a proton.
Conjugation - The process by which two single cell organisms exchange a portion of their DNA across a bridge formed between the cells.
Consumers - Heterotrophic organisms that cannot make their own food.
Contraception - Preventing live sperm and egg from coming together.
Control group - A group used for a comparison in an experiment.
Controlled substance - A legal classification for drugs that have a potential for abuse.
Convection - The movement of heat from one place to another in a liquid or gas as molecules move in currents caused by density differences.
Convergent evolution - Unrelated species becoming more and more similar in appearance because of a shared environment.
Conversion factor - A fraction used to change one type of unit to another.
Coriolis effect - Winds veer to the right in the northern hemisphere and to the left in the southern hemisphere because of the Earth's rotation.
Cork - Closely packed cells protecting the stem in woody plants.
Corm - Fleshy, upright, underground stems with papery modified leaves or scales.
Corolla - Refers to all the petals of a flower together.
Coronary - Refers to the heart.
Corrosive material - A substance capable of causing visable and irreversible damage to human skin tissue at the site of contact.
Cortex - The tissue outside the central vascular bundles of herbaceous stems and roots.
Corymb - A flat-topped inflorenscence with the pedicels of different length.
Cosmology - The study of the universe as a whole.
Coulomb - The quantity of electricity produced by a current of one ampere flowing for one second.
Covalent bond - Electrons are shared between atoms to form a compound.
CPU - The central processing unit controlling a computer.
Cranial nerves - Connect major sense organs directly to the brain.
Critical length - The length of daylight above or below which a species of plant will flower.
Critical temperature - The temperature above which no amount of pressure will liquify a vapor.
Critical thinking - The disciplined process of actively conceptualizing, analyzing, and applying information as a guide to action.
Crop - An expandable organ in the digestive system of some animals that stores food for processing.
Cross-pollination - The transfer of pollen from one plant to another of the same species.
Crystal - A true rigid solid whose particles are arranged in a regular, repeating pattern.
Cultivars - Plants that are grown specifically for food.
Cumulus - Towering clouds formed by rising hot winds.
Cuticle - The outermost layer of the epidermis
Cyanobacteria - Bacteria that are photosynthetic, carrying on the same chemical processes as green plants.
Cyclotrons - Large, circular machines used to shoot high energy particles into an atomic nucleus.
Cytokinesis - Division of the cytoplasm of a parent cell during the cell cycle.
Cytokinins - A group of plant hormones that promote cell division.
Cytoplasm - A thick, aqueous solution of salts surrounding the organelles of a cell.
Cytoplasmic streaming - The constant motion of cytoplasm in a cell.
Cytosine - One of two single carbon ring nitrogen bases in DNA.