Biomes
Objectives:
Common Core Standards:
Anticipatory Set - Multimedia Activity:
Thinking about Cities and their Locations: Lights! Action! Cities!
Biome Map:
Vocabulary:
Discussing Biomes:
Homework and Closure:
- Introduce and inform students of the regional biomes across Northern America
- Engage, dissect, and define the environmental components of the student’s home street.
- Define and distinguish between biotic and abiotic components to the environment.
- Define and investigate local biomes.
Common Core Standards:
- CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.1
- Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.
- CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.7
- Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words.
- CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.10
- Read and comprehend complex literary and informational texts independently and proficiently.
- Computer and projector (or other display)
- Internet
- North American Biomes Handout
Anticipatory Set - Multimedia Activity:
- FACT: Urban ecosystems occupy only about 2% of the land surface area of the planet, but provide a home for 50% world’s population. That is about 3 billion people.
Thinking about Cities and their Locations: Lights! Action! Cities!
- Take your students to the Night Lights Around the World website to see a composite image of the world at night as well as images of North America and Europe.
- Ask them to comment on where the urban ecosystems are in relation to coastlines, large rivers, deserts, mountain ranges, rain forests, tundra, ice caps, and other physical features of the planet.
- Call their attention to how bright the U.S. looks compared with other parts of the planet. Lighting accounts for about a fourth of all electricity used in the United States, consuming the energy produced by 120 large power plants.
Biome Map:
- Distribute the handout “North American Biomes” and crayons/colored pencils to students.
- Have students follow the instructions and complete the coloring of the map and answering the included questions.
- This map should be taped/glued into their journals. This information shall serve to make the students aware of their regional climate/biome.
Vocabulary:
- Biotic: of, relating to, or resulting from living things, especially in their ecological relations.
- Abiotic: physical rather than biological; not derived from living organisms.
- Climate: Overall weather in an area over a long period of time
- Biome: a broad, regional type of ecosystem characterized by distinctive climate and soil conditions and a distinctive kind of biological community adapted to those conditions.
- Symbiosis: two or more species live together in a close, long-term association
- Climate: Overall weather in an area over a long period of time.
Discussing Biomes:
- Students will use the map they completed in the beginning of class to identify which biome their city is apart of.
- Use the Missouri Botanical Garden’s Biomes of the World website: http://www.mbgnet.net/sets/index.htm
- Have students write down the pertinent information about their region’s biome. Students should have basic information about the climate, and the flora and fauna which inhabit their biome.
Homework and Closure:
- Nature Journals can be assigned for homework