Exploring how plants, animals and people have adapted to the temperate grasslands of America.
Video
If you ever manage to tick the Route 66 road trip off your bucket list you’ll almost definitely find yourself driving through thousands of miles of temperate grasslands, or ‘prairies’ as they are known in North America.
Grasslands - as you might have guessed - are huge expanses of land made up of different types of grasses, where flowers and herbs also grow alongside.
As well as the prairies in North America, they can also be found in South America - where they are known as the pampas; in Eurasia they are called the steppes; and in South Africa - where they are known as savanna; and Australia.
Summers in the prairies are typically warm and humid, and lightning strikes often cause fires across the land. You wouldn’t want to be standing next to a tree - you might get a bit of a shock! Thankfully that’s pretty unlikely, as very few trees could survive with the low levels of rainfall and the thin soil.
Winters are cold and the wide, open plains are often affected by strong winds, year round.
The prairies host more than 80 species of animals, including bumble bees and coyotes and 300 species of birds, such as burrowing owls - all of which have come up with ingenious ways of living in such a barren environment.
For example, in the summer, bumble bees make their homes in the underground abandoned nests of small creatures, and the Queen survives the winter by finding a protected place to hibernate, leaving the rest of the bees to die off in the first frost. What a buzz kill!
Burrowing owls hang around with prairie dogs so that they can feed off the insects associated with them and use holes dug by the dogs as their nesting sites - talk about ‘wise owls’!
Coyotes survive by being totally unfussy eaters - they eat anything from prairie dogs and rats in the summer to animal remains in the winter… yum. They also have incredible hearing - which helps them to catch their prey - and their camouflage helps them hide in the dense grass.
The grasses on the prairies tend to be short and are ideally suited to the conditions.
The frost-free summers allow for perfect growing conditions and they are able to survive the winters by remaining dormant. The grasses’ flexibility means they can withstand the strong winds and, surprisingly, they can also survive those fires caused by lightning, because their stems can regrow after being burned off.
Other types of grassland grasses include a much taller type called big bluestem, which grows with very deep roots in the wetter parts of North America.
In the 1930s settlers ploughed the big bluestem, which caused massive dust storms. They didn’t realise the grass was actually keeping the dirt from blowing away.
Another type of grass native to the South American grasslands is called milkweed. The seeds of milkweed have adapted well to the windy environment: they have a silky tuft of hair which allows them to be blown by the wind, like little parachutes.
Temperate grasslands are ideal for growing commercial cereal crops and much of the prairies is farmed for wheat and increasingly canola.
Cattle, chickens and turkey are the main livestock reared in the grasslands.
There are many food processing plants too. So when you’re driving Route 66 in your Ford Mustang, the wind blowing in your hair, remember you’ve got big bluestem to say gracias to for being able to drive off into the sunset dust free!
Video summary
Download/print a transcript of the video.
Investigating the plants and animals of temperate grasslands.
The temperate grasslands biome is located on a world map and the climate of the biome described. Presenter Ferne Corrigan then explores the adaptations made by bumblebees, owls, prairie dogs and coyotes. She also explains how plants have adapted to the grasslands, including milkweed and bluestem, and how these plants are essential to maintaining the grassland ecosystem.
This clip is from the series Ecosystems and Biomes.
Teacher notes
Download/print the Teacher Notes for this episode (pdf).
Before watching the video
Look at a map of the distribution of temperate savannas. Ask students to look for a pattern in the distribution and discuss why the temperate savanna is located where it is.
Ask students about the types of animals that they think might live in the temperate savanna and what type of climate they live in. Students could make predictions, which they could then add to once they have watched the film.
Introduce key terms such as:
Prairie: A temperate grassland in North America.
Hibernate: Spending the winter in dormant state. Some animals hibernate through the winter.
Commercial crops: Crops grown for sale, such as wheat and maize.
During the video
You may wish to stop at relevant points during this short film to pose questions and check understanding or wait until the end. Useful questions might include:
- Where are temperate savannas found?
- What type of climate does the temperate savanna have?
- Why are there fires in the temperate savanna?
- What types of animals live in the temperate savanna?
- How do the bumblebees survive?
- How do the coyotes survive in the temperate savanna?
- What types of plants can be found in the temperate savanna?
- How are the plants adapted to living in the temperate savanna?
- How do humans use the temperate savanna?
After watching the video
Ask students to look back at their predictions, were they right about what they thought they would see in the temperate savanna? Students could complete a spider diagram to note down the basic information about each of the temperate savanna characteristics: vegetation, climate, animals and human uses.
Give students an image of the bluestem or the milkweed and ask them to annotate it with their adaptations. Discuss with students how those adaptations enable the plants to survive in the climate of the temperate savanna. Students could also research other vegetation found in the temperate savannas and make a comparison between the what they saw in the film and what they have researched.
Discuss the human uses of the temperate savanna. Ask students whether they think those uses are good for the temperate s savanna or if they will cause issues. Students could then rank the uses from most damaging to least damaging using their opinion and then writing up their decision.
Where next?
Compare the temperate savanna to a contrasting biome such as the tundra or the boreal forest.
Students could compare:
- Animals
- Vegetation
- Climate
- Human uses
Students could also compare the temperate and tropical savannas.
Students and teachers over the age of 16 can create a free Financial Times account. For a Financial Times article about the risks of the African grasslands from 2024, click here.
Curriculum notes
This clip will be relevant for teaching Geography at KS3 and GCSE.
This topic appears in OCR, Edexcel, AQA, WJEC KS4/GCSE in England, CCEA GCSE in Northern Ireland, Progression Step 4/5/GCSE in Wales, and SQA National 4/5 in Scotland.
More videos from this series
The wildlife and ecosystem of tropical rainforests. video
Exploring the plants and animals living in the different layers of the tropical rainforest biome.
How animals have adapted to live in the polar biome. video
How animals have adapted to survive the freezing conditions of the polar ecosystem.
The wildlife and ecosystem of tropical rainforests. video
Exploring the plants and animals living in the different layers of the tropical rainforest biome.
