Vocab 1
What is a fertile area in a desert where water is available, allowing plants and animals to thrive?
What is an oasis?
Having little or no rain; too dry or barren to support vegetation.
What is arid?
Which desert is the largest hot desert in the world, covering most of Northern Africa?
What is the Sahara Desert?
What desert plant stores water in its thick stems and has spines to reduce water loss?
What is a cactus?
What imaginary line separates the Earth into the Northern and Southern Hemispheres?
What is the Equator?
What do we call a large, flat expanse of land covered with a layer of salt?
What is a salt flat?
Water that falls to the Earth in the form of rain, snow, or sleet.
What is precipitation?
What cold desert is located in northern China and Mongolia, known for its fossil discoveries?
What is the Gobi Desert?
What type of brush is low-growing and has tough leaves, helping it survive in semiarid deserts?
What is scrub brush?
What are the coordinates called that help us find locations on Earth?
What are latitude and longitude?
What is the term for a mound of sand formed by wind, common in many hot deserts?
What is a dune?
Oral maps used by Aboriginal peoples of Australia to navigate the Outback?
What are songlines?
What desert in South America is the driest place on Earth?
What is the Atacama Desert?
What desert-dwelling animal is known for its ability to go long periods without water and store fat in its humps?
What is a camel?
What is the significance of the Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn?
They mark the furthest points north and south where the sun can be directly overhead.
What term describes the remains or impression of prehistoric organisms preserved in rock?
What are fossils?
Animals that are active at night and sleep during the day.
What is nocturnal?
Which desert in Africa is home to a variety of wildlife and is considered a game reserve?
What is the Kalahari Desert?
What are the three categories of animal adaptations?
1) Water conservation (camel humps, get water from food)
2) Avoid heat (nocturnal, burrows, etc.)
3) Find limited food resources
What are the 3 climate zones? (Circle where Minnesota is located)
Arctic (Polar), Temperate, Tropical,
Relating to a geographic pole or the area around it
What is a Polar?
The ability to change oneself to thrive better based on the environment
What is adaptation?
What desert, located in the western United States, is famous for Death Valley and its extreme temperatures?
What is the Mojave Desert?
What strategies did the San People of the Kalahari use to adapt to the desert?
1) stored water in ostrich eggs
2) hunt & gather (bows and arrows, ate edible plants)
3) pass down their knowledge for generations
What is the line of latitude located at 66.5° N, near the North Pole?
What is the Arctic Circle?