In this interactive textbook lesson, students will discover different types of dry climate regions, where they occur on Earth, and learn about the adaptations of plants that can survive in such extreme conditions.
Videos, photographs, review questions, and a practice quiz will help students learn about the characteristics of deserts and steppes.
Teaching Tips
Positives
Students can work at their own pace through this self-guided textbook lesson, interacting with useful videos and questions throughout.
Figures and graphics are included to illustrate the text.
Students can check their understanding by taking an interactive quiz at the end of the lesson.
Additional Prerequisites
Students will need to sign in to use some of the interactive resources.
Differentiation
Biology classes could research how climate change is impacting desert biomes.
Social studies or history classes could research ancient and current desert and steppe communities.
Students can explore this resource to learn distinct features of a dry climate. The driest climates are found in the deserts, a region with intense evaporation and sensible heat. This resource is recommended.
Standards
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
ESS2: Earth's Systems
MS-ESS2-6 Develop and use a model to describe how unequal heating and rotation of the Earth cause patterns of atmospheric and oceanic circulation that determine regional climates.
LS2: Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics
MS-LS2-1 Analyze and interpret data to provide evidence for the effects of resource availability on organisms and populations of organisms in an ecosystem.
LS4: Biological Evolution: Unity and Diversity
MS-LS4-2 Apply scientific ideas to construct an explanation for the anatomical similarities and differences among modern organisms and between modern and fossil organisms to infer evolutionary relationships.
College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Standards
Dimension 2: Geography
D2.Geo.5.6-8 Analyze the combinations of cultural and environmental characteristics that make places both similar to and different from other places.
D2.Geo.10.6-8 Analyze the ways in which cultural and environmental characteristics vary among various regions of the world.
