Biosphere

High school (ages 12+)
Environment & Earth

Name:

Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/biosphere

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. What is the scientific name?Biosphaera
2. What is the origin?Evolved over approximately 4 billion years from early life forms
3. Where does life live inside the biosphere?Life can be found from the deepest ocean trenches, like the Mariana Trench, all the way up into the upper atmosphere where tiny microbes live. It also lives on land in forests, grasslands, deserts, and in the ice and rocks of the cryosphere and lithosphere.
4. How does the biosphere keep Earth a good place for life?The biosphere uses sunlight to make food in plants and algae, and this energy moves through food chains. It also cycles important elements like water, carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus, keeping the air and soil healthy.

Ecosystem: A community of interacting organisms and their physical environment, functioning as a unit.
Biogeochemical Cycles: The pathways by which chemical elements or molecules move through both the biotic and abiotic components of Earth.
Trophic Levels: The position an organism occupies in a food chain, indicating its source of energy.