Where Do You Feel Most At Home?

Environments are the interaction of living and nonliving things. An environment helps living things survive. If a living thing was removed from its enveronment, it could die. Environments can be small or large. Large environments are sometimes too big to study. A small-scale environment is easier to study. A terrarium is a container where soil, plants, and animals are kept. An aquarium is another small-scale environment. An aquarium is a container filled with water, water plants, and animals.

Living things in a small environment may include:

• Animals
• Plants
• Insects
• Bacteria
• Snails
• Worms

Nonliving things in a small environment may include:

• Rocks
• Sand
• Dirt
• Water
• Air

Try It!

Make your own small-scale environment and see what you can put in it. Make your own habitat. Be sure to include both living and nonliving things.

Materials:

• Shoebox (lined with plastic) or a two liter bottle
• Good potting soil
• Plants(violets, strawberries and many kinds of houseplants will grow well in most classrooms)
• Insects(potato bugs, crickets)
• Worms
• Snails

Be sure that insects and animals have plenty of air.

Record in your journal four living things and four nonliving things found in your habitat.

Observe your habitat over several weeks.

1. Did anything happen?
2. Is it different than when you built it?