Grasslands

Grasslands go by many names. In the U.S. Midwest, they're known as prairies. In South America, they're called pampas. Central Eurasian grasslands are referred to as steppes, while in Africa they're named savannas. What they all have in common is grass as their naturally dominant vegetation. In fact, most grasslands are located between forests and deserts. There are two different kinds of grasslands: tropical and temperate. Tropical grasslands are warm year round, but usually have a dry and a rainy season. Temperate grasslands, which average between 10 and 30 inches (25 and 75 centimeters) of rain per year, have shorter grasses, sometimes just a few millimeters. The animals that live in temperate grasslands have adapted to the dry, windy conditions. When rainy season arrives, many grasslands become coated with flowers, some of which can survive well into winter with the help of underground storage organs and thick stem bases.

Activities - Xpeditions @ nationalgeographic.com Your Mission Become a season sleuth. Learn the long and short of the changing of the seasons, then test your knowledge with our cosmic map. Briefing In most regions of the Earth, the cycle of the year can be separated into four distinct seasons: summer, autumn, winter, and spring. Each season brings with it distinct changes in weather, temperatures, and length of daylight. If your answer is yes, you're not the only one. The ancient Greeks thought that the seasons owed their existence to an unfortunate marriage between Persephone (per–SEFF–uh–nee), the daughter of the goddess of the harvest, and Hades (HAY–deez), the god of the underworld. If you asked ancient Navajo Indians, they would tell you that the seasons are caused by Estsanatlehi, the wife of the sun god Tsohanoai. The Earth rotates on an axis that is tilted. The changing position of the Earth's tilt is the reason for the differences in temperature and length of daylight that distinguish the seasons.

Lesson Plans - Seasons: Why It's Essential Grades 9-12 Overview: High school students should have a clear understanding of why the seasons occur and should be able to articulate this concept to others. This lesson reinforces this knowledge by having students review the basics of the seasons and design their own monuments to keep track of and commemorate the seasons. Connections to the Curriculum: Geography, earth science, history Connections to the National Geography Standards: Standard 7: "The physical processes that shape the patterns of Earth's surface" Standard 17: "How to apply geography to interpret the past" Time: Two to three hours Materials Required: Computer with Internet access Writing and drawing materials Objectives: Geographic Skills: Asking Geographic Questions Acquiring Geographic Information Organizing Geographic Information Answering Geographic Questions Analyzing Geographic Information S u g g e s t e d P r o c e d u r e Opening: Tell students that they are going to design their own monuments to the seasons.

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The Lost Seasons - Features - The Lab - Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Gateway to Science Hundreds of years ago, the seasons in Australia were marked by local events like sharks breeding and wattle flowering. The indigenous people had a good empirical knowledge of their local weather. Today science is finally acknowledging the validity of indigenous weather knowledge. Danny Kingsley reports on the new partnership between ancient wisdom and modern science. Australia is a large continent, with very different weather patterns all over it, yet since European occupation, the 'traditional' view of the weather has been that of the Northern Hemisphere, with four seasons; Spring, Summer, Winter and Autumn. Some people argue that Canberra is one of the only places in the country that can genuinely claim to experience all four seasons. Everywhere else, the weather is localised and different. Of course, those people who have lived in the country for thousands of years take a very different approach to the weather, tied up as it is with food supply, shelter and the land in general.