Review

• 5 physical regions • - Mountainous West • Biomes• Rocky mountains • Cordilleras • Sierra Madre • Cascade range • Temperate rainforest • Rain shadow

The Great Plains BY KRU DANNY

America’s Great Plains

Vocabulary

• Breadbasket of the North • Prairie • Wind energy • Tornado alley• Agriculture

OPEN MOODLE

Open the file to begin our interactive maps of the Great Plains

Interactive maps

You will need to save this map as a PNG file, just like last week.

• The Great Plains lie in the middle of the continent.

• Deep, rich soil blankets large areas of the plains in Canada and the United States.

• The grain grown in this region, called the “Breadbasket of North America,” feeds a large part of the world.

• The Great Plains are also home to rich deposits of oil and natural gas.

Breadbasket??

Grain turns into wheat to produce food

WATCH THE VIDEO

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVLT_UkOHdw

Map skills

•1) Highlight using your mapping tool The Great Plains.

2) What states do the Great Plains travel through?

•Much of the fertile soil was formed from material deposited during the most recent ice-

age period.

•As glaciers retreated, streams of melted ice dropped sediment on the land, building layers of

fertile soil.

Fertile soil was created after the last

ice-age.

• The grassland or prairie regions of the Great Plains make up the largest biome in North America.

Prairies are grasslands with tall grasses

• Extreme weather prevents the growth of large plants.

EXTREME WEATHER????

•Winds- are both good and bad.

· In late spring and summer, wind velocities in the central and northern Plains are among the highest in North America.· Ensures maximum efficiency for the region's windmills.

· High rates of evaporation and transpiration may minimize the effects of precipitation.

The good

• 3) Check the “environment and society box” ----- Wind energy

• What do you notice about The Great Plains compared to the rest of the world?

• What areas are high through wind energy use?• What areas are low?

WIND POWER“Certainty Rating of the Wind Resource”

The bad · Blizzards - characterized by snow, wind, & intense

cold· Occur when cold polar air masses push south along the

Rockies, and can last for several days

· Tornadoes - pose a significant regional hazard. · Great Plains experience far more tornadoes annually than

any other comparable area in the world. · Parts of Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas encounter 200 - 300

per year, largely concentrated in the spring and early summer.

TORNADO FREQUENCY

Tornado alley

F5 Tornado

3) Go ahead and mark on your map now “with the markers” a few tornado markers

inside tornado alley.

Agriculture

The Great Plains is an agricultural factory of immense proportions.

4) Go ahead and mark the circumference of the great plains. How large is the area??

The most important Great Plains crop is wheat.

Barley, canola, corn, cotton, sorghum, and soybeans grown in the Great Plains also reach markets around the

world.

SAVE YOUR MAPS

Review

• Breadbasket of the North • Prairie • Wind energy • Tornado alley• Agriculture