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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. This is clearly a daily environmental change.
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!
