Learners investigate the concept of habitat by asking why each plant and animal lives where it does. Students connect environmental conditions to the plants those conditions support, and from there to the animals that follow. The lesson introduces biomes as large-scale regions defined by climate and the life found within them, and challenges students to reason about what could and could not survive in a given set of conditions. The central takeaway is that habitat is not just where something lives but the complete set of conditions it requires to survive.

Key Ideas

• All animals share four basic needs: food, water, shelter, and a suitable climate. The specifics of those needs determine where each animal can live.
• A habitat is the specific place that provides everything an animal needs. Animals cannot survive where their habitat needs are not met.
• Plants have environmental needs too, including moisture, light, soil type, and climate. The plants in an area shape which animals can live there.
• Biomes are large regions of Earth defined by climate and the kinds of living things found there. The six major biomes covered in this lesson are tropical rainforest, desert, temperate forest, tundra, grassland, and wetland.
• Environmental conditions shape which plants grow. Those plants shape which animals can survive. Environment, plants, and animals form an interconnected chain.
• Humans can live almost anywhere because we engineer our surroundings. Our land use decisions directly affect wild habitats and the animals that cannot do the same.

Vocabulary

• Habitat: The surroundings that provide an animal with the food, water, shelter, and climate it needs to survive and raise young.
• Environmental Needs: The conditions a plant requires to grow and thrive, including moisture, light, soil type, and climate.
• Biome: A large region of Earth defined by its climate and the kinds of plants and animals that naturally live there.
• Tolerance: The range of conditions a plant or animal can survive in. Outside that range, it cannot live.
• Flora: All the plants that naturally live in a particular region.
• Fauna: All the animals that naturally live in a particular region.

Hands-On Activity: Build a Biome Challenge
Students are given a set of environmental conditions and asked to reason about what plants and animals could survive there, and which could not.

Conditions

• Rainfall: approximately 25 inches per year
• Temperature: warm summers, cold winters
• Soil: deep and rich
• Other: flat land, occasional wildfires, strong winds

Discussion Questions

• What kinds of plants could survive here? Why?
• What animals could meet their needs here?
• What would NOT survive here and why?
• Does this remind you of any biome you have already learned about?

These conditions describe a temperate grassland. Accept all well-reasoned answers. The goal is for students to think like ecologists, not to produce the correct label.