The following activities should help you connect what you’ve learned in the individual readings.
Synthesize
Look at a map of your city.
- Identify its different biomes.
- What types of organisms would you expect to find in each biome?
- How does human activity affect each biome?
Apply
Use the Internet to explore this topic further.
- Watch this Assignment Discovery: Biomes video for an overview of biomes. Select one of the biomes for further exploration: desert, savanna, temperate forest, temperate grassland, tropic, or tundra. Discuss what new information you learned about this specific biome with your group.
- Visit this site to see Stephen Wing, a marine ecologist from the University of Otago. What is the role of an ecologist and the types of issues ecologists explore?
Write or Speak
- When choosing new land to develop, governments must often harm a biome. These could be terrestrial biomes or even aquatic biomes, like wetlands. Imagine a city has several different biomes. Compare them and suggest where a city might want to build new housing.
- Watch this National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) video to see marine ecologist Dr. Peter Etnoyer discuss his research on coral organisms. Would you enjoy being a marine ecologist like him? Why or why not? Using details from the video and this chapter, write a paragraph explaining your reasons.