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Teaching students about biomes and desert animals. This is for a year two class over a few different classes. First I showed the PPT attached and then we talked about a whole bunch of reasons how the desert animals and plants have adapted to the conditions. What the conditions are and where else on earth they occur. Eg Sahara desert, Gobi desert, Sandy desert and so on. We then talked about what made these things all the same. Temp, rainfall, plants, animals etc. In art we made paper chain snakes and lizards and drew a desert scene. Making sure to point out the reason for the short plants and the different types of relationships that the plants and animals have.

Attachments

desert_ppt.ppt (1.22 Mb)

What grade would this be for?

Jeff, this is a good article that might give you some ideas for incorporating biomes:
Extreme Arthropods: Exploring Evolutionary Adaptations to Polar and Temperate Deserts

This journal article had a good activity on creating a biome in a jar. I used 2 liter bottles and it came out pretty good.

Attachments

Science Shorts: Ecosystem in a Jar (Journal Article)

This is a great resouce to support teaching concepts about habitats on the elementary level. Having the ability to include my titles and descriptions are very useful. Do you have more like this? HTB

Hi Hardett and welcome to the discussion forums! I used the term habitat for the keyword in an advanced search of lesson plans in the NLC, and several articles with lesson plans popped up. One that I though might be of particular interest to you is this one:
Box Up You Habitat
If you teach high school, you might be interested in this one:
Earth System Science Project
and here is one if you teach middle school:
Tried and True: Investigating ecosystems in a biobottle
Thank you, Gerry, for that excellent article on using 2-L bottles to teach some of these life science concepts. Perhaps these additional articles will be of use to others, too.
Carolyn

Hello everyone, Working toward my teaching degree I have observed in many classrooms, and have seen biomes taught very well. This was for a 6th grade class where the students were split into groups according to a certain ecosystem and there were to make PowerPoint presentations about the information they researched on their biome and present it to the class. They were also to make dioramas of their biomes using only 3D objects, and mostly natural materials. I got to see the final projects of some of the groups, and they were great. Just wanted to share. Thanks

That is a great idea! I like the art artifact at the end. I haven't addressed biomes yet, however, I was planning on having students do the following: 1. Read on their own - text material 2. Group Task - share/research in groups about their biome (to be assigned); each group given an 11/17 sheet of paper with a graphic organizer. Groups jot ideas down (name of biome in center of paper; Q1=animals found in area, Q2, temperature, climate, water Q3 = Types of plants found in the area, Q4 = other interesting facts 3. Students create a "backdrop" to use as a talking piece to share with rest of class. Rest of class to take notes/follow teacher lead on overhead as groups complete presentations. END PRODUCT: Each student will have notes on all biomes. **I like your idea of having them finish by doing something "fun" yet relevant....paper mache (something) in order to "symbolize" their biome. THANK YOU FOR SHARING YOUR IDEAS!

Hi All! Just an update. I had students use their textbooks to take notes on each biome (6 main ones plus the marine and fresh water biomes) in order to have them practice the DESCRIPTION strategy (there is also CAUSE/EFFECT, PROBLEM/SOLUTION, SEQUENCE and COMPARE/CONTRAST) - great practice for HSA problem solving/test taking strategies, as homework. Note: we were able to use all strategies in food chain/food web exploration. In class, we did a "Here There Poem" (a GLAD ESLL strategy) where a poem is created using parts of speech such as plural nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs and prepositional phrases. The input from students was amazing!! Sample: "Biomes here, Biomes there, Biomes, Biomes everywhere. Cool winds blowing briskly, Dry sands scorching fiercely, wet trees dripping slowly, big waves crashing thunderously. Biomes all around the world. Biomes in the poles, Biomes on the equator, Biomes at home. Biomes here, Biomes there, Biomes, Biomes, everywhere. Biomes! Biomes! Biomes!". Practice of applying and identifying parts of speech as well as creating images helped students learn about the various biomes. After creating the poem together, each table team pulled for biomes. We are at the part of my lesson where table teams use what I taught them and what we did as a whole class in order to create their own Here There poems focusing only on their biome. Presentatioins will follow. Not only did this lesson apply they newly gained knowledge of biomes, it created images that often are more long-term (than memorizing) which allows students to make connections between biomes and what characteristics/descriptions each so uniquely display, and since the words chosen for their poems are often due to prior knowledge and images of what they already have stored, they tend to remember the descriptors a lot more. Another critical aspect is the use of language arts concepts within the science curriculum. I really enjoyed this strategy. After re-reading the poems back to each class (each class created their own), they were impressed with the work they did as well as how CLEARLY each biome was represented within the poem. Many inferences could be made with the simple one line statement that pertained to the abiotic and biotic factors of each biome.