The Basics
Biomes are any major regional biological community that is inhabited by particular plant and animal groups and has a particular climate. (e.g. tundra, forest or desert)
The Details
The World's Biomes - This site has very nice information on biomes and their sub-categories.
NASA Earth Observatory - Go to this site to practice your 'biome skills'. Complete the 'Great Graph Match' (beginner and advanced) and the 'To Plant or Not to Plant' activity. Be sure to click on the plants pictures to learn about their special adaptations.
Lesson Activity
- Download the file above and open in Google Earth. Travel to each listed biome and write down the appropriate name of that biome on a separate sheet of paper. Next to the name write why you think it is that biome (what evidence did you see?). Use the World Biomes link above to choose your biome names. Be specific - e.g. there is more than one type of tundra or forest.
- Now it is your turn. Find examples of any 5 biomes somewhere in Google Earth and create two placemarks. In one placemark put the picture of an animal that lives in that biome and describe the adaptation(s) it has to better its chances of survival (make it more 'fit') in that specific biome. For the other placemark put a picture of a plant and describe the adaptation(s) it has to live in that specific biome. Save your tour as a new kmz file in your appropriate class folder on the shared 'S' drive on the school network. It will have the five original placemarks (leave them untouched) plus the ten new ones you created (two for each biome). You may repeat some of the same biome types as the ones I originally gave you but you must find a different example of that biome elsewhere in the world than the place I took you to. In other words, if one of the first five 'unknown' biomes is a desert, you may also use a desert as one of your biomes but it must be a different desert. And you will include animal and plant pictures and text describing adaptations in your placemarks.
- When you name your placemark for each biome in Google Earth, name it as follows: 'biome' animal or 'biome' plant. For example: desert animal, desert plant, taiga animal, taiga plant etc...
- Name your kmz file as: biomes_'section letter'_'group initials'.kmz For example: biomes_C_JD_SS.kmz = initials for John Doe and Stacy Smith in period C.
Google Earth Help - this link shows you how to add placemarks and how to put images or videos in those placemarks.