Activity 5: What are things like in your little corner of the world?

While we probably will not have the opportunity to visit every part of the Earth, modern technology makes "virtual" travel possible. In this last activity, we are going to collaborate electronically with other students throughout the world to share a little of the biome in our own backyard.

Option 1: Share your home biome with the world

Collect relevant climate data and construct climatographs for your geographical location. An example of such a product is shown here. Be sure you cite your data source. If you have the ability to publish your results to the web at your school, please send the URL of your graphs to the project leaders so that we may link them to this project site. If you do not have web publishing available, please send your spreadsheet document to the project leader and we will publish them for you.

Next gather information about the biome in which you live and put together an informational report so that other students may visit the corner of the world you call home. Your report should include at least the following:

• biome
• geographical location (including latitude, longitude, elevation, a map if available)
• native plants and animals (with photos if available) and their special adaptations
• comparison of the most recent year's precipitation to historic averages (including graph)
• citations for data sources and any other references used
• e-mail address so that others may communicate with you

An example of such a report is available here. Please contact the project leaders regarding publishing your report. We'd like to have as many reports from as many different parts of the globe as possible.

Option 2: Be a virtual world traveler

Pick a location in another part of the world that you would like to know more about. You are going to start by collecting climate data about this locale and identifying its biome as we have done throughout this exercise. To verify your conclusions and learn more about this part of the world, you are going to try to contact students living in that area by e-mail. Ideally, we would like to have you work with them to prepare a report about that area as in option #1.

The school sites we are going to select from are among thousands that are participating in an international environmental studies program called G.L.O.B.E. ("Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment"). As you will see, G.L.O.B.E. schools have been trained in standardized data collection procedures and report data about their local environment into an international data base via the internet. The G.L.O.B.E. program thus empowers children as a community of scientists and provides important local environmental data that is being used by research scientists. Go to the GLOBE web site. (Note: This window will remain open and the GLOBE site will open in a new window).

Look at the map and notice all of the countries with participating schools. You can see that this really is "GLOBE-al" endeavor.

Use their search engine to locate GLOBE school(s) in your selected country. The list that comes up will be of all the schools in that city whose teachers have been trained in the GLOBE procedures. Not all of these classes are actively participating in the project. Scan over the list and identify those that have reported data (they are the ones with a number next to "TOT"). Ideally find several that have reported data this year (click on "Data"). You will be attempting to contact these schools to establish a collaboration. Be sure you write down the names of your selected schools and their location so that you will be able to find them again easily. Notice that clicking on the "GLOBEmail" link under each school will automatically address an e-mail message to that class.

Now that you have identified some potential "local experts" you will need to gather what data you can about this area from the climate archives available on the internet. Construct climatographs from this information, and on the basis of the climatographs and other resources, identify the biome of this locale.

Return to the GLOBE website and click on the GLOBEmail links for your school(s). Compose an e-mail message to them. Be sure to identify yourselves and the project you are working on. Tell them a little about what things are like where you live and ask them to share some information about their home. This is your chance to verify your biome identification with local experts.

Ideally we would like you to collaborate with your international partners to put together a report about the biome they call home. See option #1 for the essential elements of your report. Sample climatographs and reports are included here. Please contact the project leaders regarding publishing your graphs and report. We'd like to have as many reports from as many different parts of the globe as possible.

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