In this unit, the children will be introduced to different ways of communicating geographical data, particularly through different styles of maps. They will learn to read weather and climate maps, and learn how weather and climate are generalised into world climate zones. The concept of biomes will be explored, each with the distinctive climate, soil, flora (animal life), fauna (plant, bacterial and fungal life) and human activity. 

Fieldwork

In the school environment, children will collect, analyse and communicate weather data. They will also be given the opportunity to a visit a deciduous forest or woodland, where they will find out about the native trees of our temperate forest biome.

How can I support learning at home?

You can reinforce and support pupils' learning in lots of ways:

• Visit the library and look at books about biomes, weather and climate
• Discuss/describe what a biome is
• Describe and compare different biomes using appropriate vocabulary
• Locate tropical (warm and wet, found on or close to the equator), temperate (moderate weather - temperatures change greatly between summer to winter) and polar (cool summers and extremely cold winters) climate zones on a globe or map - a library can help here.
• Describe the characteristics of these zones
• A useful site is www.econet.org.uk/weather which includes sections on ‘Weather around the world’ and ‘Weather extremes’