Deserts and Chaparral
Student Assessment:
Deserts
A desert is a biome where there is little precipitation. If a biome receives only 50cm or less of rain a year it is usually categorized as a desert.
-About 1/5 of the earths surface is covered in desert
-The arctics and sometimes the tundras receive as little precipitation as the deserts so they can be referred to as "Cold Deserts"
-The lack of water creates a large amount of strain on any plant life because of this plant life is very sparse in the desert. Plant life in a biome usually holds soil together. Because there is little plant life, deserts erode very quickly. The quick changes in temperature, extreme heat during the day and cold at night, cause rocks to crumble. The water of flash floods can also cause the sun backed rocks to shatter. Along with these geological forces and wind is how deserts acquire their large amounts of sand.
-Because of the wind and high amounts of erosion a process known as denudation takes place in most deserts. Denudation is where the earth erodes away creating a basin. This is why deserts tend to be the lowest points on earth.
-We also get some beautiful rock formations
Arches National Park in Utah
The "Subway" in Zion Utah
-Just because a desert has a lack of water, represents the hottest places on earth, and has very little plant life, does not mean that there are no animals. Deserts have a large diversity of animals well adapted to these harsh environments.
-The majority of desert animals are nocturnal to avoid the heat and water loss. In other biomes there is usually a mix of diurnal and nocturnal animals to avoid predation and niche
Videos:
As said before the desert can be a beautiful place. I have done many backpacking trips through the desert. One of the most beautiful California deserts is Joshua Tree National Park. People travel from all over the world to go to Joshua Tree. Joshua Tree is a rock climbers paradise because of the huge boulders.
Mr. Bird Exploring Jumbo Rocks in Joshua Tree
Mr. Bird Joshua Tree Back Country Backpacking
Class activity:
Get into groups of 4
You have 5 minutes to write down as many Desert animals as your group can think of
The group that has the most after 5 minutes will win extra credit
We will be doing this for each of our biomes
Homework:
-You need to have a picture of a Desert and you need to have 10 unique animals that live in that biome. For each of those animals you need to label their taxonomy, where they live, what they eat, and a fact about them. They need to be from at least 3 different phyla and 6 different orders
-If you chose you can draw the 10 animals in the Desert biome like in this example
Video:
BBC Planet Earth: Deserts
Chaparral
-A Chaparral is defined as a shrub land that has hot dry summers and mild wet winters. Wildfires is an important feature for most chaparrals.
-The plant life that lives in a chaparral is usually drought tolerant due to the long drought periods that sometimes affect chaparral
-There is not much chaparral in the world
Videos:
Since the Los Angeles mountains are Chaparrals I spend a lot of time backpacking through chaparral. From the city our mountains look brown and ugly but up close they can be beautiful as well. Even our Channel Islands are chaparral.
Mr. Bird Backpacking the Channel Islands
Mr. Bird Backpacking Switzer and Bear Canyon
Class activity:
Get into groups of 4
You have 5 minutes to write down as many Chaparral animals as your group can think of
The group that has the most after 5 minutes will win extra credit
We will be doing this for each of our biomes
Homework:
-You need to have a picture of a Chaparral and you need to have 10 unique animals that live in that biome. For each of those animals you need to label their taxonomy, where they live, what they eat, and a fact about them. They need to be from at least 3 different phyla and 6 different orders