Hot desert plant and animal adaptations

Last updated: 15/11/2023
Contributor: Teachit Author
Hot desert plant and animal adaptations
Main Subject
Key stage
Category
Geography: AQA SOW planner
Resource type
Complete lesson
Student activity
Continents
Africa
Continents
Asia
Continents
Middle East

Use this complete lesson and worksheet to help students understand how desert plants and animals adapt to the physical conditions of the desert environment.

What's included?

A lesson PowerPoint, a student worksheet and a lesson plan with detailed teaching notes. Use for GCSE and upper KS3 students.

What will students learn?

Students work in groups to research adaptations of their chosen desert plant or animal, with web links and resources on drought tolerant plants like the Joshua tree and the barrel cactus as well as camels and the addax.

Students create annotated diagrams to describe and explain how it has adapted to survive in desert conditions with little water, for example, labelling the root systems or leaves to describe how they retain water and avoid water loss. An extension task helps students consolidate their understanding further by creating a word chain to describe how their desert plants/animals adapt to the dry desert climate.

Students present their research to the class and consolidate their findings into a table summarising the different adaptations. The lesson then moves on to look at biodiversity and threats in desert regions with examples from the Sahara desert.

Keywords

Succulent: A property of desert plants which store water in their thick fleshy leaves.

Biodiversity: The range of plant and animal life found in a place.

Endemic species: Plants and animals whose habitat is restricted to a particular area or place.

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useful images.

DJ S

29/04/2020

5

28/04/2020

5

5

useful images.

DJ S

29/04/2020

5

28/04/2020

5

5