Climates Around the World

What You'll Need:

• A large zip-lock bag
• A small pot or plastic cup
• Soil
• A few small plants or grass seeds
• Water
• A piece of string or a rubber band
• A marker pen

Experiment Steps

1️⃣ Prepare Your Mini Garden: Fill the small pot or plastic cup with soil. Plant a few seeds or a small plant in the soil. Water it just enough to make the soil moist.

2️⃣ Create Your Climate: Take the zip-lock bag and carefully place your pot or cup inside. Add a little bit of water to the bottom of the bag (not too much, just enough to cover the bottom). This will create humidity inside your bag, similar to a tropical climate.

3️⃣ Seal the Bag: Close the zip-lock bag securely. If it doesn't seal well, you can use the string or rubber band to keep it closed. Use the marker pen to write your name and the date on the bag.

4️⃣ Place in a Sunny Spot: Find a sunny spot in your house or outside where your mini climate can get plenty of light. The sun will heat up the air inside the bag and create condensation, simulating rain.

5️⃣ Observe Changes: Over the next few days, watch what happens inside your bag. You'll see water droplets form on the inside of the bag and drip back down, like a mini water cycle. Check how your plant or seeds are growing each day.

What You'll Learn

This experiment teaches you about different climate elements like heat, humidity and the water cycle, all within a bag! You'll see how plants need sunlight, water and the right temperature to grow, just like in different climates around the world. This is a fun way to learn how weather and climate affect living things on our planet.

C) Temperate Climates are known for having four distinct seasons.

Tropical climates experience a lot of warmth with rain, dry climates experience mostly dry warm weather and polar climates experience mostly cold and snowy weather.

D) Tropical Climates have the highest rainfall because the heat creates a lot of evaporation, which leads to rain.

B) Inland areas far from the sea are dry climates because there is no body of water nearby.

C) Very cold temperatures year-round is a defining feature of Polar climates since they are located close to the North and South Poles.

• Climate Diversity: The Earth has five major climate zones: tropical, dry, temperate, continental and polar, each with unique temperature and rainfall patterns.
• Equatorial Climate Consistency: Near the equator, the climate remains consistently warm and humid throughout the year due to the high angle of sunlight.
• Extreme Conditions in Dry Climates: The Sahara Desert in Africa, a dry climate, can reach temperatures up to 50°C (122°F) during the day and drop significantly at night due to the lack of humidity.
• Polar Regions: Polar climates, located in areas like Antarctica, have temperatures so cold that precipitation falls mostly as snow, leading to large ice sheets.
• Adaptation to Climates: Human settlements, agriculture, and wildlife have uniquely adapted to thrive in each climate zone, illustrating the versatility of life on Earth.

Places get more rain if they are closer to the ocean, high up in the mountains or where the wind brings in clouds full of water.

Yes, the weather can change over time because of things people do and natural changes on Earth.

Animals have special ways to stay warm or cool, like having thick fur for cold places or being able to drink less water in hot places.

Deserts are dry because they don’t get much rain. This can happen if they’re far from the ocean or shielded by mountains.

No, not all places have four seasons. Some places are warm all year, and others are cold or just have rainy and dry seasons.

It gets colder as you go up a mountain because the air is thinner and doesn’t hold heat as well.

A rainforest is called that because it gets a lot of rain all year, which helps lots of plants and animals live there.

No, polar bears need cold climates to live and the desert is too hot for them. They love the cold and ice!

Places have snow because they are very cold, and when water in the air freezes, it falls as snow instead of rain.

A climate zone is a big area with the same kind of weather, like really hot, really cold or somewhere in between.