Hobbies And Interests
Does It Belong?
This exercise should follow a reading assignment about the biome. Gather general pictures of plants and animals and landscape from an assortment of biomes. Show a picture to the class and have them say whether the item in the picture belongs in a deciduous forest biome. Discuss why the item does or does not belong in the biome. Use simple pictures for young classrooms and more complicated photography for older students. Put pictures that depict items and scenes in a deciduous forest into a scrapbook and have each student write an informational page about one of the pictures.
Biome Transparencies
Divide students into several groups. Assign each group a layer of the biome. Give them a large sheet of clear plastic with lines to indicate the area of the sheet on which to work. Have students paste or draw pictures of plants that live in that layer of the biome on the plastic. When they are finished, hang up the top layer transparency and discuss the features. Hang the next transparency over the first, and discuss the new layer, then explain how the two layers work together in the biome. Continue until all layers of the biome are hung together, making a pictorial chart of the biome's characteristics.
Food Web
Building a food web is an excellent way to show students the interdependence of the many species of a biome. Hang a large picture of a deciduous forest. Give students animals to place in the forest. Once the animal pictures are in place, have the students connect strings from one animal to what it eats. Continue connecting animals to other animals and plants until the web shows the food source for everything in the picture. Take out one of the animals show how the food chain is disrupted. See if students can find new places to connect the strings attached to certain animals, and how balance of the system is affected.
3-D Biome Model
Making a three dimensional model of a biome takes a little more work than other projects, but makes for educational and interactive projects. Older students can build the models and items to go into it. Build the landscape terrain, then populate the terrain with the appropriate types of plant life models. Add animals to the vegetated landscape. Have at least one wall of the model where statistics that include temperature, precipitation and season length can be displayed. The completed model can be used for biome lessons for classrooms of younger students. For instance, you can add a few features to the biome that don't belong and have the students pick out the items that shouldn't be there.