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Biome Brochures or Stories

Students like to be creative. Sometimes they like to use their own images and hand writing, and sometimes students want to use computers. Here are some examples of Biomes my students created to show mastery of knowledge.

The students are given options for assessment. Her are a couple of examples. One student creates a Biome story for the Tundra.
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Tundra Biome Project by: Alyssa Holmes
I am the coolest bear on the planet! My name is Bob, and I’m a polar bear. I live in a cold biome called the tundra in northern Alaska. I have extremely thick, white fur which is my adaptation to the tundra. The thickness allows me to stay warm in the cold climate and the white fur helps me blend in so I can sneak up on my prey. I don’t want my food to see me and run away because then I’ll be hungry! When I wake up on an average day in my habitat, I see mounds and mounds of snow. It’s kind of cold when I wake up, but I ignore it because what polar bear is afraid of the cold??? It’s very normal for it to be cold because the temperature, which is an abiotic factor, is usually -20 to -30 degrees Fahrenheit. There isn’t much precipitation here only about 6-10inches a year, that including melted snow.
I’m hungry and I don’t feel like waiting forever for an animal to show up, so I walk to where I can find my favorite berries, which is a biotic factor, called Bearberries and I eat some of those to hold me off. Now that I have something in my tummy I walk to go find some food. As I’m going to find some yummy food I hear a something, I turn and look, there’s an Arctic Fox coming this way. Finally I find some food I start chasing after it and he’s running very fast but I eventually catch up with him. When I do, I attack him. I ‘grrrr’ and ‘rawr’ and I have a nice meal. I am his predator and he is my prey (yummy!) I am at the top of the food chain in the tundra, so no other animal can beat me up. My only real predator is the human, but I can probably take them out too. On my way around my habitat I see an air hole for the Arctic Seal, which happens to be my favorite food of all time. I lay down right beside it waiting for a seal to come up for oxygen. When it does I pounce on it and kill it in 2 or 3 swipes of my paws. When I kill it, it falls back into the water so I dive in to catch it. I can stay under water for about 2 minutes. While I am down there I munch on some seaweed which is pretty good too.
When I am done in the water I walk around and I pass an Arctic Willow. It’s a plant with oval shaped leaves, a wedged shaped bottom, and a little stalk. I am not a producer because I cannot make my own food. But I am a consumer because I get my food from other organisms (I eat them!). I am an omnivore which is a cross between a herbivore- a plant eater- and a carnivore- a meat eater.
I usually wouldn’t see a Snowy Owl until around nighttime but since we’re in the tundra, and everything is all weird here, there isn’t darkness in the winter so he has to go out and hunt during the day. While I am on my way home I see the Snowy Owl flying over me. I would totally eat him but polar bears don’t fly.
I have a niche or a job just like all other living organisms. My job is to make sure there isn’t an over populated species so I eat them. I eat Arctic Foxes, Arctic Seals, and some plants. But in my job the only organism that eats me is the human. I turn my food into energy so I can move around all day. And I reproduce sexually by fertilization, but the females only give birth to 1 or 2 cubs at a time.
There aren’t a lot of plants in the tundra that I live in. That is because it’s cold and because there is permafrost, a layer of frozen ground, under what little soil there might be. So I rarely get to eat plants. But that’s ok I prefer eating other animals anyway because they’re more of a challenge to eat. I have made my way around my habitat eating, swimming, eating again, and living a normal day. I am very tired so I will walk back to my cave and sleep for a while before I do this all over again.

Students learned about biomes, their climates, and organisms. They really enjoyed learning about the types of ights, sounds and smells in the different biomes, and worked really hard to learn the climates. The fun part for my students was the culminating project. The students had choices of creating a travel brochure for their favorite place or writing a story for a Journal as an animal or a biologist.

Students create Brochures.

Inside the brochure.

They had to include the biome name, vegetation, climate, sights, and scenes of the area. The students included things you might want to bring to show they had knowledge of the biome. Students did have an interest in creating the brochure. Many like designing their own work. Sometimes they barely know they are working. They were able to present their project to the class. This seems to assist with encouraging good work. A few of the students did not complete their work. Some created written projects about being an animal in a specific biome.
My students learn better when given options. The backward design is useful because it assist in putting the end goal in mind first and creating steps to get the outcomes wanted for student learning. I will continue to use this method for teaching science to my students.