AP Environmental Science flashcards

What's in it

Every deck follows the course outline, with tags you can study or suspend topic by topic. Open a deck to study its free sample right here.

Study guide

Topics covered

The decks follow the order of the course outline. Numbers are cards per topic.

• Ecosystems 29
  • Biogeochemical Cycles 10
  • Energy Flow 8
  • Interactions and Biomes 11
• Biodiversity 14
• Populations 15
• Earth Systems and Resources 23
  • Atmosphere and Climate 13
  • Geology and Soil 10
• Land and Water Use 29
  • Agriculture 8
  • Forestry Fishing and Mining 9
  • Sustainability and Urban Land 5
  • Water Use 7
• Energy Resources and Consumption 32
  • Fossil Fuels 11
  • Nuclear Power 11
  • Renewables and Conservation 10
• Atmospheric Pollution 21
  • Controls and Indoor Air 9
  • Smog and Acid Deposition 12
• Aquatic and Terrestrial Pollution 33
  • Solid Waste 8
  • Toxins and Human Health 11
  • Water Pollution 14
• Global Change 24
  • Climate Change 12
  • Invasive Species and Extinction 6
  • Ozone Depletion 6

A study plan

• 8 new cards a day covers everything in a month, leaving the last weeks for review.
• 5 new cards a day covers everything in two months, leaving the last weeks for review.

Willys schedules reviews for you (FSRS spaced repetition), so the daily number above is only for new cards; reviews of what you have learned come back on their own. Study a topic's cards right after you meet it in class, suspend topics you have not reached yet, and use the app's quiz mode in the final two weeks.

How to get these decks

1. Install Willys on your iPhone, iPad or Mac — App Store. 14-day free trial, then $14.99 a year.
2. In Willys, tap Exam Library at the top of your Decks (or Browse Exam Library… under the + button), find the exam on its shelf or by search, tick it and tap Add.
3. Study. The exam comes in as its own collapsible folder, every card scheduled by FSRS spaced repetition. Nothing you already have is changed.

About these cards

Review status: Second-reader reviewed, with corrections applied.

Checked against:

• Topic outline follows the College Board AP Environmental Science Course and Exam Description (effective Fall 2026), Units 1–5 (outline only; no course or exam text reproduced).
• OpenStax Biology 2e, consulted as a reference; no text copied.
• Carbon-cycle, atmosphere, Earth-orbit, fishery and population facts checked against NASA Earth Observatory's The Carbon Cycle and the NASA NSSDCA Earth Fact Sheet (U.S. government works; public domain), IPCC AR6 Working Group I, Chapter 5 (2021; CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), Fisheries and Oceans Canada news releases of 26 June 2024 and 12 June 2026, and the Statistics Bureau of Japan's population estimates as of 1 October 2024 (Public Data License 1.0) (reference only; no text copied).
• Topic outline follows the College Board AP Environmental Science Course and Exam Description (effective Fall 2026), Units 6–9 (outline only; no course or exam text reproduced).
• Pollution, regulatory and health facts checked against U.S. EPA public information pages (U.S. government works) (reference only; no text copied).
• OpenStax Chemistry 2e, consulted as a reference; no text copied.
• Energy, nuclear, ocean, ozone, wildlife, landfill and health facts checked against U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), NOAA, U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Geological Survey and National Cancer Institute public information pages and 40 CFR part 258 on eCFR (U.S. government works; public domain) (reference only; no text copied).
• Also checked against WHO fact sheets, the Met Office's account of the 1952 London smog (Open Government Licence v3.0), the WMO/UNEP Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion: 2022, the IPBES media release on its 2019 Global Assessment, and the UN Treaty Collection's text of the Paris Agreement and status page for the Kyoto Protocol (reference only; no text copied).
• Topic outline follows the College Board AP Environmental Science Course and Exam Description (effective Fall 2026), Units 1–9 (outline only; no course or exam text reproduced).
• OpenStax Biology 2e and OpenStax Chemistry 2e, consulted as references; no text copied.
• Concepts checked against U.S. EPA public information pages (U.S. government works) (reference only; no text copied).
• Facts also checked against NOAA National Ocean Service, NASA, U.S. Energy Information Administration and U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission pages and the Clean Water Act definitions in 33 U.S.C. 1362 (U.S. government works); Twenty Questions and Answers About the Ozone Layer: 2022 Update (Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion: 2022, World Meteorological Organization); the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Synthesis (2005); and the IPBES 2019 Global Assessment media release (reference only; no text copied).

These are independent study notes written for Willys. They are not official exam material, may contain mistakes, and are no substitute for your course, your teacher or the exam owner's own publications. Found an error? Tell us — corrections ship as a new version of the deck.

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