Lesson video

Hi, everyone, I'm miss Reid, and welcome to our second lesson on biomes.

Let's have a look at our lesson title.

So our question for today is, where are the earth's biomes? Well, in this lesson, we are going to be learning about the earth's six major biomes and where they're located and how their position on earth impacts their climate.

We'll conclude by considering the huge variation that exists within continents and biomes themselves.

So in this lesson, you'll need an exercise book or a piece of paper, you'll need a pencil and you'll need your brain.

Now, please take a moment to clear away any distractions, including turning off any notifications, apps or conversations that you have going on in the background if you know how to.

Finally, if you can, try to find a quiet place where you won't be disturbed during the lesson.

Pause the video now so you can get the things that you need.

Now you have everything you need let's carry on.

So we are geographers.

Now, geographers are special types of scientists who study the earth and that's includes the physical features or the land and the people who live within it, and that's the human features.

In this lesson, we'll be questioning what is a biome? We'll then go on to consider where do biomes occur in the world? And finally, we will look at diverse continents.

So what is a biome? Let's recap on that definition? Well, a biome is a large area of land with a particular climate, types of plants, flora, and animals, fauna.

Flora, plants, fauna, animals.

Flora, absolutely plants.

Fauna, animals.

Very, very good.

Okay, let's move on.

Complete the sentence.

Use the key words to help you.

A biome is a large area of, with a particular, types of plants, and animals.

The keywords are, flora, climate, fauna, land.

Pause the video now so you can complete that sentence.

Let's see if you got that right.

A biome is a particular, it's a large area of land with a particular climate, types of plants, flora, and animals, fauna.

Give yourself a pat on the back if you've got that right.

I always got muddled up there.

You can pause the video now, while you tick or fix your answer.

Great work, let's move on.

So we're still thinking about what a biome is.

Let's take a closer look.

A biome is different from an ecosystem.

An ecosystem is the interaction of living and non-living things in an environment.

A biome is a specific geographic area that is defined by the species living there.

A biome can be made up of many ecosystems. For example, an aquatic biome can contain ecosystems such as coral reefs and kelp forests.

Great work, let's move on.

Here's a question for you.

A biome and an ecosystem are the same thing, true or false? Tell your screen.

You are right.

It's false.

A biome and an ecosystem are not the same thing.

A biome is a geographic area of land and an ecosystem is the interaction between the living and non-living things.

And there can be lots of ecosystems within one biome.

So, here's the map that we've seen in our previous lesson.

Now, this map contains a colour key that outlines the many different types of biomes that exist on earth.

This map shows 18 different types of diverse biomes.

Now, what this map shows is that the exact number of biomes is widely debated.

We are studying six major biomes.

But it's helpful to know that within those six major biomes there's diversity.

Have a quick look and see if you can point to the six major biomes using the key.

I've underlined them to help you.

Have you picked out the tundra, the taiga, the temperate broadleaf forest, sometimes we call it the temperate deciduous forest, the arid desert, the savanna, sometimes we call them grasslands, and right at the bottom, the tropical rain forest.

Well done if you got all of those.

Let's move on.

Answer the question, how many major biomes are there? A, six, B, 16, C, 18.

Pause the video now, and write down your answer.

Let's see if you've got the right answer.

The answer is of course, six.

We're looking at six major biomes and they're the ones we just recapped.

Pause the video now, so you can tick or fix your answer.

Great work, let's move on.

So before we move on, we're going to recap on the names and locations of the seven continents.

I'm sure you know most, if not all of these.

And don't worry if you don't because we'll recap them.

Now, where is North America? I'd like you to point out one of the continents they're coloured in different colours to help you.

Where is north America? Put your finger on it.

Did you put your finger on the light green continent? Well done, that is north America.

The labels appeared next to it to help you.

Put your finger on South America.

Did you put your finger on the dark green continent? The labels appeared next to it.

So we have North America here and South America here to the south.

Put your finger on Europe.

Did you put your finger on the dark red continent? You can see that the label Europe has appeared next to it, right up here.

Put your finger on Africa.

Did you put your finger on the yellow continent, that's down here? Well done.

Put your finger on Asia.

Or actually, we're going to put our finger on Antarctica, first.

Put your finger on Antarctica.

Did you put your finger on the blue continent, down here at the bottom? Well done if you did.

Now, we're going to put something on Asia.

Did you put your finger on this light red continent? Fantastic work.

And then finally Oceania.

The last one.

That's right.

That's down here, this purple continent.

Great work, everyone.

Let's remove my pointer.

So now we've labelled and named all seven continents.

I want to tell you something that's very, very important when we think about and look at maps, such as this one.

Now, an important thing that you need to know when you look at a map of the entire world, is that the images that you see of the continents and the countries have been distorted.

Now, the reason why certain countries look bigger or smaller than others is due to something called, the Mercator projection.

Now, the earth is the shape of a 3D sphere.

Putting a 3D planet on a two dimensional world map was something of a challenge for early cartographers, that's mapmakers.

And so, a Flemish geographer and cartographer named Gerardus Mercator, came up a solution for the most accurate world map yet.

In 1569, he designed an Atlas that could be accurately used for navigation purposes.

That means travelling around the world.

But the downside was that his system distorted the size of objects depending on their position, relative to the equator, the imaginary line that runs through the centre of the earth.

Because of this, land masses like the UK, Antarctica and Greenland appeared much bigger than they actually are on a Mercator map.

Though there are around 40 types of map projections, depicting the true size of countries and continents, this one is still the most widely used because of its convenience and simplicity.

Now, a quick question for you before we move on.

The Arctic is not on this map.

Why isn't the Arctic a continent? You can shout it out.

Well done for those of you who knew.

The Arctic is not a continent because there is no land mass underneath the ice sheet.

Fantastic work.

Let's move on.

So here we have our map outlining the biomes again.

This map outlines where the equator is, the imaginary line that runs around the centre of the earth, and it also shows us we're 30 degrees south and 30 degrees north up.

You can put your finger on 30 degrees north and then the equator and then 30 degrees south.

Now these are called latitudes.

And they help geographers to measure the distance of a place on the earth from the equator.

The pink line above 30 degrees south is the Tropic of Capricorn.

The purple line below 30 degrees north is the Tropic of Cancer.

The area within these lines, with the equator in the middle, is referred to as the tropics.

And this is where we find the hottest temperatures year round on earth.

Now let's have a closer look at some of these biomes.

I'm going to ask you some questions and I would like you to write down your answers when I tell you to.

Sometimes I'm going to ask you to shout out the answers.

Now, you can see that the six major biomes have been underlined.

And we're concentrating on those six major biomes.

In this case, I have included the xeric shrubland in the same category as the arid desert.

And for this activity, we're going to call both of these colours, the desert.

So I'll show you here.

This dark brown colour and this light brown colour, for today, we're going to include both of these under the title "Desert".

Now, I want you to run your finger along the equator.

Which of the six major biomes occurs most often along this line? Write your answer down.

You can pause the video while you do that.

I wonder what you wrote.

Let's have a look.

When I run my finger or my pointer along this line of the equator, here, it's tropical rain forest, tropical rainforest, tropical rainforest here, tropical rainforest around the equator here, and even as far up as here, and tropical rainforest all along this landmass which runs along the equator.

You can tick or fix your answer now.

The answer was tropical rain forest.

Now, who out there remembers what the climate's like in a tropical rain forest? Shout out the answer.

That's right.

It's very hot with lots of rain.

It's a perfect climate for the growth of all that diverse variation of vegetation.

Okay, next question.

Which of the six major biomes can you find in Northern Russia and the most northern area of North America? Have a closer look.

Which of the six major biomes can you find in Northern Russia and the most northern part of North America? Pause the video now while you write down your answer.

Did you get it right? Let's have a look with my pointer.

So if I take my pointer, up here, in the most northern part of North America and Northern Russia, all that is tundra.

You can tick or fix your answer now.

Okay, next question.

Put your finger on Europe.

Which of the six major biomes covers most of the UK and much of the European continent? Which of the six major biomes covers most of the European continent and the UK, the United Kingdom.

Write your answer down and pause your video while you do that.

Did you get that right? Let's have a look with the pointer.

So, most of the UK and the European continent, that is the temperate broadleaf forest.

You might have also written temperate deciduous forest and that's okay too.

Pause the video while you tick or fix your answer.

Now, do you remember what deciduous means? Shout it out.

That's right.

Deciduous means that the leaves on the trees fall off annually.

Great work.

Okay, next question.

Let's zoom in.

In which continents can you see desert? Remember that we're including both of the dark brown and the light brown colour in the category of desert.

Which continents can you see desert? Pause the video while you write down your answers.

Let's have a look with the pointer.

So, desert.

I can see desert in North America, there is desert in South America along this small strip here, there's desert in Africa, there's desert in Asia and there's desert in Oceania.

You can pause the video while you tick or fix your answers.

Okay, last question.

Which continent can you see a taiga or the coniferous forest? And so, sometimes we call it the taiga sometimes we call it the coniferous forest.

Let's have a quick look on the key to see or identify the colour of the taiga.

So it's this green colour here.

Which continents can you find the taiga in? Pause the video now, so you can write down your answers.

Did you get them all right? Let's have a look with the pointer.

So I can see the taiga in North America, I can see the taiga in the northern part of Europe and the northern part of Asia.

So your three continents are Asia, Europe and North America.

Pause the video now so you can tick or fix your answers.

Excellent work, everyone.

That's fantastic, using the map to identify biomes.

You've done a fantastic job.

Give yourself a pat on the back.

Let's move on.

Let's have a closer look at this diagram.

It's important to understand that the further away a land mass is from the equator the colder the climate will be.

This is because of the earth's curved shape.

At the equator, the sun's light hits the earth surface directly.

So you can see, here, the incoming sunlight is hitting the earth's equator directly.

The earth's energy, the sun's energy, the heat energy doesn't need to spread out across a large area of land.

However, here we can see the incoming sunlight as it hits the earth's surface, because of the curve of the earth, the sun's energy or the sun's light is distributed over a large area of land.

Now, this means that there's less heat energy and that means that the land here will be cooler.

Let's move on to another task.

Choose the correct option.

Why is it hotter near the equator than at 30 degrees north and 30 degrees south? Let's look at the options.

The equator is closer to the sun, the sunlight directly hits the surface of the earth at the equator, the equator heats up more quickly than anywhere else on the earth surface.

Pause the video now and choose your answer.

Let's check the correct option.

The right option was B.

It's because the sunlight directly hits the surface of the earth at the equator.

Pause the video now so you can tick or fix your answer.

Great work, everyone.

So, diverse continents is what we're thinking about now.

Let's quickly recap on the continents looking at this map.

So, that appear as you're looking at them.

You can point to the continents a I read them out.

North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania.

Antarctica isn't quite on this map, but that's okay.

Now, I going to ask you a question.

Which three continents include a tundra and a desert? So this purpose of this exercise, we're also going to have a lookout for mountain tundras.

Now mountain tundras are this light purple colour.

Put your finger on the light purple colour.

For example, here is a mountain tundra.

I want you to have a look at the map and think about which three continents include a tundra under desert.

You can pause the video and then I'm going to ask you to shout them out.

Okay, shout out your answers.

Which three continents include a tundra and a desert? That's right.

North America includes a tundra and the desert as to South America and Asia.

Let's have a look.

There is a tundra and a desert.

There is a tundra here, a mountain tundra, and the desert.

And in Asia, there is a tundra and a tundra here and the desert.

Well done if you got that right.

Okay, my second question.

Which four continents include a tropical rain forest and a temperate broadleaf forest? Remember, we're looking for the dark green tropical rainforest and the light green temperate broadleaf or deciduous forest.

Pause the video now and then I'm going to ask you to shout out your answers.

Which four continents include a tropical rain forest and a broadleaf forest? Let's have a look and check if you've got that right.

So we have a tropical rainforest and a broadleaf forest in North America, a tropical rain forest and underneath this black line, a broadleaf forest.

We have a tropical rain forest in Asia and a broadleaf forest.

And in Oceania, we have a tropical rain forest and a broadleaf forest.

Well done if you got those correct.

So that brings us to the end of today's lesson.

A really big, well done in all fantastic learning you've achieved today.

And if you're able to, please ask your parent or carer to take a picture of your work and share it with your teacher so that they can see all the fantastic things you've learned.

And if you'd like, ask your parents or carer to send a picture of your work to, @OakNational on Twitter so that I can see your lovely work too.

That's all we've got time for today.

Thanks so much everyone and see you in our next lesson.