Biodiversity and Healthy Ecosystems

Have students read across one row of the biomes table before they try the map. For the biodiversity sheet, ask students which plot would recover best after a disease and why.

Graph sample species counts for plots such as a meadow and a lawn, then explain why variety helps. The directions on the page read: Read the text and study the table. Draw one bar for each plot on the graph. An answer key is included.

Yes, both. We made it for 6th Grade ecosystems, and the page works the same whether it lands on a kitchen table or a center rotation. At home, most families go through it together and talk the answers out loud, and that talking is where most of the learning happens with biomes and biodiversity. In class it runs well as independent work while you pull a small group. Print one copy or thirty, whichever the day needs.

World Biomes covers tropical rain forest, savanna, desert, temperate deciduous forest, taiga and tundra. The table gives each one's latitude, temperature, rain per year, plants and animals.

On the World Biomes table, the desert and the tundra each get under 25 cm of rain per year. The tropical rain forest gets over 200 cm.

An ecosystem with high biodiversity tends to be healthier and more stable. If a disease kills one species, other species that do a similar job can take its place, and an ecosystem with few species has few backups.