5. How does the biosphere provide natural resources?

• Geography
• Lower Secondary (Key Stage 3)

Introductie

This lesson is part of a series of lessons for year 7 geography, focussing on the inquiry of ‘how do we use our planet as a natural resource?’. Each lesson contains a variety of interactive learning experiences, including various engaging tasks, videos, discussion points and key geographical skill developments, such as drawing tables and field sketches. The lessons are designed to be taught in sequence, but can be saved to your LessonUp account to be edited at your leisure, and saved for future usage.

Instructies

Save this lesson to your LessonUp home folder to edit and adapt this resource to your liking, or simply press ‘teach’ to teach it to a class right away! Some slides have instructions on how to use them, but can easily be changed to suit your needs and your classes. For any help with any resources, or how to use LessonUp, get in contact with us on [e-mail].

LO: To understand what the 'biosphere' is and how humans use it as a resource.

Date: 

Date left blank for you to add in whenever you need it.

What do you think the 'biosphere' is?

A massive ball

An online game

A computer script

all life in the natural world

a climate (like the savannah)

Why do you think the development of maps has been important for the human race?

Why are you interested most in that area?

Define the biosphere in 2 sentences!

Let's have a look at one particular biome; The Rainforest.

Source: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/biome/biorainforest.php

Everything highlighted in green is a rainforest biome.

What do you notice about where the rainforests are located?

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/biome/biorainforest.php

Structure of the Rainforest

Emergent Layer:

This is the highest or top layer of the rainforest, starting at 45m from the ground. The emergent layer has long towering trees of 70-100m, which are taller than most other trees in a forest. The emergent layer is hot, because of the sunlight, breezy and wet - which makes it a hard place to live! 

Canopy Layer:

The canopy layer is the second tallest, at around 30-40m above the ground. This layer is the host to the majority (60-90%) of all living species. The rate of photosynthesis is also the highest up here because of the amount of sun that cascades between the emergent layer.

The canopy later is essental for maintaining the climate of the rainforest, with the leaves protecting the forest floor from the intense sun's heat, flooding and dry winds, keeping the layers beneath moist and shaded.

This layer contains overlapping trees such as Lianas (rainforest vines) that function as a stable ground or 'floor' for the animals living there. Epiphytes also grow around the branches of trees and other plants which allow animals to climb amongst them. 

Understory Layer:

This layer lies below or underneath the emergent and canopy layer. Here it is very humid, and much damper than the other two layers due to the shade of the canopy, so only around 5% of sunlight can break through. 

The understory layer consists of herbs, shrubs, herbaceous plants, ferns climbing plants and young trees, which can adapt well to find pockets of sunlight, fueling their growth towards the higher layers. The leaves of the plants here are large, to help them in the fight for sunlight, and the trunks of the plants are covered in mosses, lichen and fungi, which are attracted to the shade and humidity.

Forest Floor:
This layer is the final layer. Darker and the most humid of them all, with only about 2% of the sunlight reaching it. This layer consists of fallen leaves, twigs, fruits and seeds fallen from the layers above. These materials combined with the low sunlight and high humidity allow rapid decomposition aided by soil bacteria and fungi. The forest floor is not rich in nutrients, however, because of the amount of tree and plant roots cascading through. Because it is the easiest to access, this is the most well-studied layer of the rainforest. 

Animals in the Emergent Layer.

Harpy eagles, scarlet macaws, monkeys, squirrels, morpho butterflies.

Animals in the Canopy Layer.

Green aracari, red-eyed tree frogs, tamarin, sloths, howler monkeys, iguanas, orangutans, lizards

Due to it being hard to see with all the plants, animals in this layer use calls to communicate.

Animals in the Understory Layer.

Insects and butterflies, snakes, tamandua - this is where birds prey on insects and snakes get small mammals for food.

Animals on the Forest Floor.

This is where massive land animals live such as elephants, leopards, gorillas, tapirs, hippos, jaguars and tigers. Insects, such as leaf-cutter ants and amphibians like poison dart frogs are also very common. The insects live in massive super-colonies consisting of millions of members. 

Video Time!

360 Interactive view

Ensure to press 'show for student' when in 'teach mode' so that your students can explore the biome in their own time!

We will now study two documents from the Rainforest Alliance, a charity dedicated to protecting the rainforest biomes worldwide. 

See what you can find out about how we use the rainforest in our daily lives!

https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/33694719/overview-tropical-forests-in-our-daily-lives-rainforest-alliance

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Source for printing a copy for your students: https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/33694719/overview-tropical-forests-in-our-daily-lives-rainforest-alliance 

To enlarge the text click on the image to make it full screen! Use this opportunity to encourage your students to take notes, discuss, or come up with an activity round the classroom. Why not bring some products that originate from the rainforest into class?

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