How does the biosphere support life on earth?

1. How does the biosphere support life on earth? Aim: To understand the interdependence between ecosystems and people.

2. Where do you find rainforests? What distinguishes them from other forests? What’s the average annual rainfall? How does the rainforest return moisture to the atmosphere after rainfall? (2 ways) How much of the rainfall is transpired back and falls as rain again? How much sunlight does the rainforest receive each day? http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/rainforest-photosynthesis/3093.html What does rainforest take in? release out? Which 3 things do rainforests rely on? • http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/rainforest-processes-costa-rica/3091.html watch this clip and answer the questions in notes at the back of your book

3. Biosphere= life support system. Why?

4. Contrasting uses of a rainforest. • For each image create a spider diagram to illustrate the use of and effect on the rainforest.

5. Biomes – Goods and Services • What do you think is the difference? • Goods – products and items sourced from the biome for survival or commercial use. • Services – measures the biome takes to serve the planet. e.g. regulating the composition of the atmosphere, maintaining the health of the soil.

6. Goods Services List as many different goods and services you can think of.

7. What goods and services are provided by rainforests • Sort the cards you have been given to determine the goods and services produced by our most productive land biome

9. http://www.at-bristol.org.uk/cz/rainforest/rainforest.htm • Goes through main goods and services • Includes people’s opinions of value of rainforest

10. Cocoa Rubber Bananas Brazil Nuts Pineapples Sugar Many medicines Animals for drug tests Ecotourism Endangered animals Cosmetics Colourings for lipstick Timber Plants Tourism Pets Goods and services Deforested- Land for farming crops Grazing cattle for beef production Extracting underground minerals

11. How biosphere regulates carbonThe carbon cycle http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3SZKJVKRxQ&feature=PlayList&p=C606EB957A1DDF22&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=67 long video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Vwa6qtEih8&feature=PlayList&p=C606EB957A1DDF22&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=49 short video

12. Estimated major stores of carbon on the Earth.

15. http://www.studystack.com/matching-1461 loads of games on the carbon cycle • http://www.open2.net/historyandthearts/discover_science/launcher_elementonthemove.html element on move game- move round a carbon element

16. Which biomes hold most carbon? • Rainforests • Taiga • Mangroves • Coral reefs

17. How the biosphere maintains soil health • http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/rainforest-layering/3092.html

18. Nitrogen Nitrogen is a central component of cell proteins and is used for seed production. It exists in several chemical forms and various micro-organisms are involved in its transformations. Legumes and algae, are able to transform atmospheric nitrogen into a form available for plant use. Nitrogen in dead organic materials is available to plants through mineralization. Nitrogen lost from the pasture system through the physical processes of leaching, runoff, and erosion, and through residue burning. Nitrogen is needed for forage production and is lost easily, this nutrient is often the limiting factor in crop production. Productive pasture management practices enhance the fixation and conservation of nitrogen while minimizing the potential for nitrogen losses. Practices for effective nitrogen cycling in pastures include: • Maintaining stable or increasing percentages of legumes by not overgrazing pastures and minimizing nitrogen applications, especially in the spring. • Protecting microbial communities involved in organic matter mineralization by minimizing practices that promote soil compaction and soil disturbance such as grazing wet soils, tillage, and cultivation. • Incorporating manure and nitrogen fertilizers into the soil, and never applying these materials to saturated, snow-covered, or frozen soils. • Avoiding pasture burning. If burning is required, it should be done very infrequently and then using a slow fire under controlled conditions. • Applying fertilizers and manure according to a comprehensive nutrient management plan.

19. Nutrient Stores

20. Biosphere and regulating the hydrological cycle • Trees intercept precipitation • They then provide basis for evapotranspiration • They provide cover for soil to reduce soil erosion and leaching of nutrients • The dead leaves create nitrogen stores- imperative for the nutrient cycle we looked at earlier • The removal of trees and any vegetation reduces interception and evapotranspiration, increasing surface runoff- interfering with the natural hydrological cycle

22. So why after deforestation are these areas found to have some of the least fertile soils in the World? Imagine you are a farmer looking at the vegetation above. What would be your thoughts about how productive that land would be?

23. Goods and services provided by the BIOSPHERE • What things do we get from rainforests? • What lies under deserts and tundra? • What do coral reefs provide us with? • What services do Savannas provide us with?

24. Task Describe the goods and services that are produced by the rainforest ecosystem (4) Explain why these goods and services are important to us (4)

25. Homework Task • Produce a piece of work entitled either- • The rainforest is important to me because…… • My rainforest connections…. • I rely on the rainforest for….. • Your piece of work can be a written piece, a poem, a collage, a story, a video, a storyboard • You must include details about- • The things you use that originate in a rainforest • Information about how the rainforest helps your planet survive- the carbon, nutrient and hydrological cycles info)

26. e.g Methane from cows The nutrient cycle Annotate the diagram giving examples of each link. One has been done for you.

27. Study fig 5 Edexcel book.