Lesson 34: Habitats
Habitats provide the resources and conditions organisms need. This lesson connects food, water, temperature, space, and plant life with where species can live and how land use changes their habitats.
Key Ideas
- Animals need food, water, suitable space, and environmental conditions. Requirements vary by species and life stage.
- A habitat is where an organism lives. It must provide resources and conditions that meet that organism’s needs.
- Climate is one of the needs. Hot, cold, wet, and dry places suit different living things. Later lessons look at weather, climate, and biomes.
- Plants have environmental needs too. The plants in an area shape which animals can live there. Environment, plants, and animals are all connected.
- Technology helps humans live in many environments, while our land use can protect, alter, or fragment wildlife habitats.
Vocabulary
- Habitat: The place where an organism lives and finds the resources and conditions it needs.
- Environmental Needs: The resources and conditions an organism needs to survive and grow.
- Shelter: A safe place for an animal to rest, hide from enemies, and raise its young.
- Tolerance: The range of conditions a plant or animal can survive in. Outside that range, it cannot live.
- Wildlife Corridor: An area connecting habitat patches that allows wildlife to move between them.
Hands-On Activity: Habitat Conditions 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 a habitat you know? How do its conditions compare with the ones listed here?
These conditions can support a temperate grassland. Accept any well-reasoned answers that connect an organism's needs with the conditions.