1. Botanical Garden Field Trip Ms. Laura’s Class Located in the Sonoran Desert, in Phoenix, Arizona
2. What is a desert? A place where there is a shortage of usable water The Sonoran Desert is Located here
3. 2 Categories of deserts:horse latitude and rain shadow deserts Horse latitude or high pressure zone At 30 degrees latitude in both the northern and southern hemispheres, the west coasts of all continents have deserts. These are caused by high pressure zones which result from warm, dry descending air. This downward motion of dry air prevents rain. 30o 30o
6. Habitats The Sonoran Desert has many different landforms, soil types and moisture. As a result, several habitats (communities of plants and animals) have developed in this area.
7. Desert Habitat The desert, with its many mountains and valleys, is the largest habitat. These plants can survive on less than ten inches of rain per year.
8. Mesquite Bosque Along waterways, where ground water is high, small mesquite forests grow. The mesquite tree is an important plant to the desert and the life in it. It is sometimes referred to as the tree of life because it has so many different uses.
9. Desert Oasis There are valleys in the desert where one can find streams, pools and ponds. Many trees like cottonwood, willow trees, and cattails would otherwise die without these areas.
10. Semi Desert Grassland On the eastern edge of the Sonoran Desert lie semi-desert grasslands. The elevation is higher and the rainfall is about ten to eighteen inches per year. Many grasses, acacia and yucca plants grow here.
11. Chaparral The chaparral habitat are mostly in the northern areas of the Sonoran desert at much higher elevations of 2400 to 4100 feet. There is 13-25 inches of rain every year. The juniper and desert spoon make their home here.
12. Match the Habitat Desert Mesquite Bosque Chaparral Desert Oasis Semi Desert Grassland Check the next slide to see if you’re correct!
13. Match the Habitat Desert Mesquite Bosque Chaparral Desert Oasis Semi Desert Grassland
14. What is a cacti? Any succulent plant of the family Cactaceae native to the arid regions of the world and usually having spines. Succulent plant: water retaining plants that store water in their leaves, stems, and roots.
16. Tonto Basin Agave Agave delamateri This plant looks like a cacti but is actually more related to the Lily. It was first used by the Sinagua Indians. It cannot reproduce by flowers and seeds, instead it uses clones to reproduce.
23. Extremely hardy. Can live in temperatures as cold as ten degrees. (ag.arizona.edu, 2011)
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25. Covered in long, white hair-like spines. They can be small clusters or tall plants that can grow to over ten feet tall.
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27. References Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum (2011) Education and online learning. Retrieved April 10, 2011 from http://www.desertmuseum.org College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (2011) The University of Arizona. Retrieved April 11, 2011 from http://www.ag.arizona.edu Desert Botanical Garden (2010) Retrieved April 10, 2011 from http://www.dbg.org Photo credits: All photos taken by Laura Altmaier unless otherwise specified. Flower photo slide 19 from desert-tropicals.com Map from slide 3: http://www.coursesa.matrix.msu.edu Diagrams on slide 4 and 5 from www.desertmuseum.org
Notas do Editor
Coursesa.matrix.msu.edu
Diagram from the teacher’s guide, Arizona Sonoroan Desert Museum (2011).
Diagram from the teacher’s guide, Arizona Sonoroan Desert Museum (2011).
Let’s think about all of the different habitats that the desert has. It’s not just dry and sandy.
Our desert, theSonoran Desert, has all of these types of habitats and we will look at each.
This is the one we see the most in Phoenix.
These areas are spread all around and throughout the Phoenix area.
This is a photo from Scottsdale Convention and Visitors Bureau. There are many areas near Cave Creek and Carefree that you may have seen like this.
These areas are generally near the Eastern part of our state but often if we travel up the I-17 toward Prescott we will see some of these areas. Photo from nwbirding.com
Chaparrals are the areas we see when we are on our way to Flagstaff. The desert starts to look a little plusher and we know we are not in our own backyards any longer. Photo:Brewbooksphotostream on Flickr
Can you remember how the different habitats were described? See if you can match the photos to the habitats…
The arrows point to the correct photos.
There are so many different kinds of cactus. We see so many of them each and every day. Let’s start a journal and see how many we can find tomorrow.
These are the parts of the cacti plant.
We will explore some of the plants at the Botanical Garden. Pretend you are strolling the paths and stopping to take a closer look…