Project Blog Biome Project - Grasslands

http://grasslands2026,weebly.com

Summary

Grasslands are large landmasses that are full of grass but surprisingly no trees. This is like a paradise for cattle rearing and in places with cattle rearing being one of subsistence activities; grasslands are no less than perfect. The reason of no trees lies in the fact that temperate grasslands receive lesser rainfall and are drier. 

Location:

The major temperate grasslands include:The velds of Africa,The pampas of South America,The steppes of Eurasia, and The plains of North America.Grasslands are considered the transitional biome. This means that they are usually found between deserts and forests.

Climate:

 Temperate grasslands have hot summers and cold winters. Summer temperatures can be well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, while winter temperatures can be as low as -40 degrees Fahrenheit. They typically have between 10 and 35 inches of precipitation (rain) a year, much of it occurring in the late spring and early summer Seasonal drought and occasional fires help maintain these grasslands so they don't get out of control.

Plant life:

There are many types of plants in grasslands. To name a few, there is: Crazyweed, Buffalo Grass, and Milkweed. Obviously, there are a lot more plants. Plants are vital to animal survival. Most of these plants are good for pollinators. These plants are also eaten by animals, thus sustaining the food chain. (to learn more about these plants go to http://grasslands2026.weebly.com/plant-life.html)

 

Animal Life:

Some of the common animals located in the grasslands are: Black Footed Ferret, Pronghorn, and Swift foxes. There place in the grasslands food chain has the black footed ferret near the bottom, with swift foxes in the same area, and then have the pronghorn almost at the top of the food chain. (To learn more about the animals go to animals)

Human interference's:

Humans use grasslands as spots where wind turbines and other sources of renewable energy can be held. There can be lots of wind turbines used in grasslands. Renewable energy can take up a lot of space, even though it can help a lot. Solar panels and wind turbines are usually placed in the place of grasslands. Grasslands are also destroyed for urban development. They are divided up for homes and businesses. Grasslands are also razed down for farms. Livestock eat all the plants. Grasslands are also impacted by tourism. Animal behavior is severely affected by humans coming and watching them. (There is one more slide on the website but I did not feel the need to include it in this blog.)

Backward-Looking: How much did you know about the subject before we started?

I did not know a lot about grasslands. The only thing I can confirmly say I knew before we started was that I knew that a grassland was a prairie, and there were grasslands in the plains of  america.

Inward-Looking: How do you feel about this piece of work? What parts of it do you particularly like? Dislike? Why? What did/do you enjoy about this piece or work? I believe that our group did a good job on this project. I think that our website has strong information that if we needed to prove a point (for some reason) about grasslands we would have the information to back it up. Our diorama, I think that we did a good job using different colors of grass to represent the different grasses, having different animals to represent the animals, and having a background showing to people how grasslands are a transitional biome. The thing I didn't like about our website was that there were more than a few times where we would slack off because "This is boring, it's just grass, who cares about it," said by Jayden. (My team member, here is his blog link:his blog, and my other team member jonathan: his blog) So it would be hard to focus resulting in us being a little behind. Our diorama on the other case I think looks good, the only flaw I think is that when we did it (jayden) to all the advice from other groups and let the other groups influence our decisions (some where good, most where bad).

Outward-Looking:  Did you do your work the way other people did theirs? 

Yes and no. Each group had the same assignment create an electronic advertisement showing what your biome is about and create a diorama. Here are the differences, each group had a different biome and the election project could be a video or a website, some groups did one while another did the other one. Also the diorama's looked different because the biomes were different.

Forward-Looking:  One thing I would like to improve upon is our diorama. Now I think we did a good job and we weren't short on materials at all. But I would like to improve it because we didn't really have a plan for our diorama. Plus we didn't read the instructions on how to stick the fake grass down.