<p>Week 26 The Arctic Tundra A biome is a large area or environment that shares the same general climate of temperature and rainfall. Different biomes support different types of plants and animals. An ecosystem is a community of plants and animals, interacting with their environment. </p><p>What are different biomes in the world? Grasslands, deserts, tropical rainforests, wetlands, oceans, deciduous forests, coniferous forests, etc.</p><p>The Arctic tundra is a biome. The tundra is a cold, dry region where trees cannot grow. This region lies on top of a layer of ice that never melts called permafrost. The tundra is covered by snow more than half the year. Mosses, lichens, grasses, and low shrubs, however, grow for a few short months. Many kinds of animals live in the Arctic such as caribou and snowy owl.</p><p>Look at the polar projection map of the Arctic.</p><p>Let's read the information on the map.</p><p>Let's look at the Arctic region on the classroom globes.</p><p>The Arctic region is the cold region around the North Pole. It includes the Arctic Ocean, the northern parts of the continents of Asia, North America, and Europe. The Arctic tundra is part of this geographic region.</p><p>A number of people make their home on the tundra of the Arctic region. The Inuit are the most widespread Arctic people. They live in parts of Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and Siberia.</p><p>Review vocabulary: 1) Arctic tundra - a cold, dry region near the Arctic Ocean where no trees grow. 2) A biome is a large area or environment that shares the same general climate of temperature and rainfall. 3) ecosystem - a community of plants and animals, interacting with their environment. 4) polar projection - used for mapping hemispheres instead of the whole Earth; shows accurate distance and direction, but shape and size of area is distorted toward the edges.</p>