During the lesson, confer with students to determine if they understand the different factors in each environment and the relationships among them all.

• Gauge student understanding by asking questions of the entire class or asking students individually. Listen for misconceptions during group discussion and throughout the lesson:
• Monitor the use of scientific language not yet introduced to gauge students’ prior knowledge.
• Have students create a list of three abiotic and three biotic factors
• Create a list of vocabulary and ideas with which to open discussion the next day.

Day 1

Engage students’ attention by posting a thermal image of Earth next to a map of Earth’s biomes (S-B-1-1_Thermal Image of Earth.doc). This can be done on a LCD projector, an overhead projector, or by passing out photocopies to each student. Pose a series of questions to the class and hold a class discussion:

• “Why are global temperatures reduced as the latitude increases?”
• “Why does England look warmer than similar latitudes?”
• “Where does England get its warmer weather from?”
• “Do you see any patterns with temperature and water?”
• “Do you see any relationships between biomes and their geographical location?”

Introduce the lesson by posing a question to the class: “What do different environments need to be healthy and balanced?” Go through possible answers with the class and discuss factors that are shared by very different environments, such as terrestrial and marine environments. Pose more questions related to environmental factors:

• “Which necessary factors are living and nonliving?”
• “Can anyone give me more scientific terms to use for living and nonliving factors?” (biotic and abiotic)
• “Does each organism have a specific role in its environment?”
• “Are all organisms in a balanced community important? Necessary?”

Go through answers with the class and lead them to your instructions for the lesson, which will engage students in isolating different environmental needs, unique to different ecosystems.

Step 1: Divide students into four or eight equally sized groups.

Step 2: Have each group draw a Job card from the Student Resource cards (S-B-1-1_Student Resource Cards.doc) and brainstorm resources needed to perform that job and what they believe is the ideal environment for that job. Have groups use the Student Resource cards and record their ideas.

Step 3: Have each student draw an Environment card from the Student Resource cards (S-B-1-1_Student Resource Cards.doc) and brainstorm possible jobs and resources within that environment. Students record their ideas on the Who Needs Whom? worksheet (S-B-1-1_Who Needs Whom.doc).

Step 4: Students draw a Resources card from the Student Resource cards (S-B-1-1_Student Resource Cards.doc) and brainstorm possible environments and jobs that would fit with the card just drawn. Students record their ideas on the Who Needs Whom? worksheet (S-B-1-1_Who Needs Whom.doc).

Step 5: Students share ideas through class discussion while you record pertinent vocabulary and ideas that demonstrate prior knowledge of the concepts.

Day 2

Start the second day of this lesson with a review of ecological terms taken from the class discussion.

• Limiting factor
• Interdependence
• Niche
• Habitat
• Community

Lead into a discussion of what makes a biome different from an environment or an ecosystem:

• “What are examples of different biomes?”
• “What makes a biome different from an ecosystem?”
• “Which abiotic factors are responsible for creating different biomes?”

“Now that we have defined a biome as a large geographical area with similar climatic conditions (mainly precipitation and temperature) and communities of plants and animals, we can get started on today’s activity.”

Step 1: Lead a discussion using the above-mentioned list of ecological terms to summarize and address ideas. Have each group select what they consider the two most important ideas and record them on the Who Needs Whom? worksheet (S-B-1-1_Who Needs Whom.doc).

Step 2: Each group draws one Environment card.

Step 3: Each group draws one Job card and one Resources card and looks for matches with the Environment card they already have, based on the Step 1 discussion. Determine what is needed for all three cards to match.

Step 4: Explain to students that their task is to acquire both a Job card and a Resources card that fits with their Environment card. Their only resources are the other groups.

Step 5: After students have acquired their sets, start developing the concepts of niches, Resources, and limiting factors that are deemed important. The following are suggested talking points for connecting activities to concepts:

• “How do the jobs connect to the niches?”
• “How are the roles of producers and farmers in their environments similar?”
• “What is the relationship between a hunter-gatherer and a secondary consumer?” “What is the relationship between a recycler and a decomposer?” “How are materials connected to limiting factors?”
• “How are environments connected to biomes?”

Discuss the following jobs with the class and assign the jobs within each group before presenting their materials to the class:

• Resource Manager
• Recorder
• Scribe
• Facilitator
• Speaker

Extension:

• Provide students with concept-map homework to review and organize the day’s learning, and assign a biome Web quest in which students research biomes in order to further familiarize themselves with all biomes.
• For students performing above the standards, they can create an estimated chart highlighting global temperature changes and the adaptations of biome to these changes. This chart will include:

o   Global temperatures for the last hundred years and the estimated temperatures for the next hundred years.

o   A before and after diagram of Earth’s biome with a contrasting prediction of Earth’s biomes in one hundred years.