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11
PENNSVALLEY
Lesson 5:
Environments of theWorld
Physical features and the climate conditions that you have studied
combine to create the environment of land areas throughout the world.
Environments can be both natural and human-made.Deserts and tropical
rain forests are good examples of natural environments. A city is a good
example of a human-made environment.
Both kinds of environments create habitats for living things. The
environment of a land area determines the kinds of plants and
animals that live there. Plants and animals adapt to the habitats
created by natural environments and to habitats created by humans.
Scientistsestimate that asmanyas5,000different kindsofmammals,
8,500different kindsof birds, and5,000,000different kindsof insects
inhabit and adapt to environments around theworld.
Scientists have created environment maps that use colors to
identify human-made and natural environments throughout the
world.Natural environments shownonenvironmentmaps are known
as vegetation regions.
In your study of the continents and geographical regions of the
Eastern Hemisphere, you will be using environment maps in your
classroom atlas to identify and study land environments.
ACTIVITY:
Use a classroom atlas to match each environment type in the right hand column to its correct
environmental description in the left hand column. Our earlier lesson (
LLB=Lesson 4
) on Climate
Maps contains some helpful information for this activity. LLBmeans
Lesson Look Back
.
Environmental Description
EnvironmentType
1.
wetlands coveredwith treesandgrasses
a. tropical and subtropical rainforests
2.
treeless, hot summersand coldwinters
b. temperate forests
3.
cities
c. taiga–evergreen forests
4.
soil ispermanently frozen
d. tropical grasslands–African savanna
5.
cold forestsof RussiaandCanada
e.drygrasslands–prairies, pampas, andsteppes
6.
higher elevationmeans colder temperatures f. croplandandgrazing land
7.
hot, rainall year, near theEquator
g.desert
8.
freezing temperaturesand coveredwith ice h. swamp
9.
hot with seasonal rain
i.polar–NorthandSouthPoles
10.
hot or cold, dry, and canbe very coldat night j. tundra– southof NorthPole
11.
NorthAmericanandNorthernEurope forests k.mountainsandhighlands
12.
human-madeenvironmentsworldwide
l.urbanareas
Vegetation
regions are
also called
biomes
.
They are ecological
communities of plants
andanimals.Climate
conditions, physical features,
and locationdetermine the
plantandanimal life that
live inabiome.
Geography Skills
