Preview · the opening missionRead this to the class:
A museum is building a new hall called "Where in the world?" Six weather stations have sent a year of climate data, but the labels fell off. All the museum knows is how far north or south of the equator each station is. Your team's job: work out which biome each station is in, and which plants and animals belong in its display.
Teams of three, with jobs that rotate after each graph: Reader (reads the graph aloud), Gallery walker (checks the biome cards on the walls), Recorder (fills the table).
Look inside the PDF
Sample pages, stamped “preview”. The download is the clean, full lesson.
In the full lesson PDF
10 printable pages
- Predict (5 min)
- Hunt (25 min)
- Reveal (10–15 min)
- Act (10 min)
- Background for the teacher
- Assessment
- Student sheet
- Worksheet: Climate graph cards
- Worksheet: Biome and life cards
- Worksheet: Label it
- Worksheet: Try it at home
On the student sheet
- My prediction
- Reading the graphs
- The hardest match, and how we decided
- Museum label
- Exit ticket
- Climate graph cards
- Biome and life cards
- Label it
- Try it at home
US Letter, prints cleanly in black and white. The student sheet is on its own page, ready to photocopy.
Free with an account (any 3 lessons), or US$19 for all 4 lessons in this unit.
What students show by the end
- Reads a climate graph
- Matches climate to biome
- Explains adaptations
From the lesson’s rubric, which scores each one as not yet, getting there or got it.
Questions teachers ask
How long does “What makes a biome?” take?
50–60 min. Group size: teams of 3.
How much prep does it need?
15 minutes: print one set of climate graph cards and life cards per team, cut apart. Print the six biome cards large and tape them on the walls as a gallery, spaced well apart.
What materials do I need?
None. No materials needed: just the printed sheets.
What’s in the lesson PDF?
A teacher guide that walks you through predict, hunt, reveal, act, background for the teacher and assessment, then a student sheet (“My prediction”; “Reading the graphs”; “The hardest match, and how we decided”; “Museum label”; “Exit ticket”; “Climate graph cards”; “Biome and life cards”; “Label it” and “Try it at home”) on its own page, ready to photocopy. It’s US Letter and prints cleanly in black and white.
Can I try it for free?
Yes. A free account includes any 3 full lessons of your choice, and this can be one of them. After that, this unit is US$19 for all 4 lessons, yours to keep, or every lesson is US$199 a year.