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Environmental change - what sort of thing are we talking about?
Well, such changes can take place over a very long timescale or, indeed, a very short one. You have to look at it from the point of view of the organisms experiencing that change.
For example, for a tree in a wood, the rising of the sun and its movement through the sky, is a change in its environment. This allows it to absorb sunlight, make food, and grow.
On the other hand, the place where you're sitting, reading this, was once under the sea or, perhaps, a desert! As a result of the way that the land masses move around the surface of the Earth, over millions of years, the environmental changes are huge but happen over a massive timescale.
Then again, some changes in environments can be very localised: for example, imagine a rainstorm, resulting in a swollen mountain stream that feeds into a river. For the animals and plants living near the stream, conditions will have changed a lot, but only until the water settles down again.
Contrast that with a global change to the environment: as our climate warms up, the rising temperatures are having a variety of effects worldwide from rising sea levels to areas becoming desert as there is no longer any rain. These are global effects.
So, use this activity to explore a little more of what environmental change means and how it impacts the different communities of plants and animals that are experiencing those changes.
Ready to find out more? Let's go!
