Draw and cut out a set of paper eyes to attach on straws for making characters.

Paper Eyes

Start your exploration of the desert biome and learn about the challenging conditions that render it an extreme and inhospitable environment for most plants and animals. Create a model of the sidewinder snake, a reptile that has evolved to survive in this hostile climate.

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🇬🇧 Teacher Notes

### Lesson Structure

When students go through this lesson in each section, the objectives they will learn are:

* **Imagine** – Learn how arid deserts can be in hot or cold regions of the world.
* **Build** – Design a sidewinder desert viper to make its home in a dry desert.

Teacher Notes

Overview and Objectives

Materials

#### Teachers: Preparing Your Students (5 min)

When students begin the lesson, they start in [Overview and Objectives](#overview-and-objectives), then transition to this [Preparation](https://classroom-authoring.strawbees.com/resource/intro-lesson-class-three-levers#preparation) section. Presented in their view is a vocabulary list of terms and infographics illustrating concepts across STEAM domains throughout this entire lesson.

* Read through the vocabulary list. (5 minutes) * Review the Sustainable Development Goals. (5 minutes)

This is the list of vocabulary terms used throughout the lesson. They will be in **bold** and listed throughout the different sections. Students can always revisit the vocabulary definitions with media and questions in the lesson. (5 minutes)

Preparation

#### Desert Biomes

* Desert biomes receive less than 25 cm (10 in) of precipitation.
* Deserts can be in hot regions, or cold ones, like Antarctica.
* Animals and plants in the desert biome have special adaptations to conserve water. 
* There are five main types of desert: subtropical, interior, arctic, coastal, and rain shadow.
    * Weather patterns cause subtropical deserts like the immense and dry Sahara. 
    * Air masses circulate warm, moist air near the equator, while the drier air masses are pushed north and south away from the equator. 
    * Interior or inland deserts, like the Gobi Desert in Mongolia are too far from a large body of water to receive rain.
    * Death Valley, in California, is a rain shadow desert. These occur when high mountains are too tall for rain clouds to cross over.
    * The Atacama desert in Chile is a coastal desert and has the least.

What makes a region a desert is that it receives less than 25 cm of precipitation a year.  Deserts may be hot or cold.

SDGs

NGSS

Florida - NGSSS

Imagine

Create the body

Build a head

Make fangs

Attach head

Build

References and Extra Resources

STEAM Classroom

United States

Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss.

Goal 15

Construct an argument with evidence that in a particular habitat some organisms can survive well, some survive less well, and some cannot survive at all.

3-LS4-3

Define a simple design problem reflecting a need or a want that includes specified criteria for success and constraints on materials, time, or cost.

3-5-ETS1-1

Generate and compare multiple possible solutions to a problem based on how well each is likely to meet the criteria and constraints of the problem.

3-5-ETS1-2

Plan and carry out fair tests in which variables are controlled and failure points are considered to identify aspects of a model or prototype that can be improved.

3-5-ETS1-3

Define the criteria and constraints of a design problem with sufficient precision to ensure a successful solution, taking into account relevant scientific principles and potential impacts on people and the natural environment that may limit possible solutions.

MS-ETS1-1

Evaluate competing design solutions using a systematic process to determine how well they meet the criteria and constraints of the problem.

MS-ETS1-2

Students communicate complex ideas clearly and effectively by creating or using a variety of digital objects such as visualizations, models or simulations.

ISTE Students

1.6.c Creative Communicator

Recognize and explain that living things are found all over Earth, but each is only able to live in habitats that meet its basic needs.

SC.2.L.17.2

Recognize ways plants and animals, including humans, can impact the environment.

SC.4.L.17.4

Compare and contrast adaptations displayed by animals and plants that enable them to survive in different environments such as life cycles variations, animal behaviors and physical characteristics.

SC.5.L.17.1

Describe characteristics (temperature and precipitation) of different climate zones as they relate to latitude, elevation, and proximity to bodies of water.

SC.5.E.7.6

Investigate and apply how the cycling of water between the atmosphere and hydrosphere has an effect on weather patterns and climate.

SC.6.E.7.2

Explain and illustrate the roles of and relationships among producers, consumers, and decomposers in the process of energy transfer in a food web.

SC.7.L.17.1

Describe and investigate various limiting factors in the local ecosystem and their impact on native populations, including food, shelter, water, space, disease, parasitism, predation, and nesting sites.

SC.7.L.17.3

Describe how models and simulations can be used to solve real-world issues in science and engineering.

SC.35.CS-CS.1.2

Identify ways that technology can foster teamwork, and collaboration can support problem solving and innovation.

Intro: Desert Biome

Overview and Objectives

Lesson Structure