Biodiversity
Biodiversity is the variety of all living things found in a place.
A pantry shelf holds tall boxes, short jars, wide cans, and small pouches. Each one stores a different food — grains, oils, spices, sauces. If a leak ruins the cans, the jars and boxes still have food. That is biodiversity — more kinds means a stronger place.
Explaining biodiversity by grade level
Walk up to three different trees in a park. Look at the bark on each one. Now count the bugs you find on each tree. Some trees have many kinds of bugs, and some have just a few.
Projects that explore biodiversity
The variety of living things in a place depends on the habitat that supports them. Flowering trees tend to attract more insects than evergreens, so different tree species host different types of insects. You can compare which trees host the most insects and whether the same orders appear on all three.
Scientists organize the variety of living things using taxonomy, a classification system that groups species by shared traits. You can compare the full taxonomy of different species side by side. The level where two species first share the same group shows how closely they are related.