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 Article:
Some Things Will Always Change: Land Use in a Dry Tropical ForestThis article is from Issue Tropical Edition - Vol. 3 No. 1.
* Note: All editions of the Natural Inquirer starting with Volume 5 and including future editions require the newest version of Adobe Acrobat Reader 6.0 in order to be downloaded. We have upgraded in order to ensure greater accessibility to PDF files. Please click on the following link if you need to upgrade your Adobe Acrobat reader: Upgrade now to Adobe Reader 6.0. It is a free upgrade. Meet the scientists that contributed to this article: "Science Topics" covered in this article:
"Environmental Topics" covered in this article:
Regions covered in this article:
"Thinking About Science Themes" covered in this article: Scientists observe natural areas using many different techniques. One way to observe natural areas is through photographs. In this article, the scientists wanted to learn about changes in an area of land over a long period of time. They wanted to know if trees were growing or had been cut down, or if roads or buildings had been built over the years. To do this, they used photographs of an area taken between 1936 and 1989. The photographs were taken from an airplane. Photographs taken from an airplane are called aerial (air e ul) photographs. The aerial photographs were compared with each other to show changes in how the land was being used. By comparing these photographs, the scientists were able to see the changes that had occurred on the land over a long period of time. Specific "Thinking About Science" Themes:"Thinking About Environmental Themes" covered in this article: Tropical forests are very diverse. Although most people know about tropical rain forests, they may not know about tropical dry forests. Can you guess what makes dry forests different than rain forests? A rain forest receives more rain than a dry forest (Figure 1). A rain forest can get up to 400 inches or 1,000 centimeters of rain each year (What is the average number of inches or centimeters possible every week? What is the average number possible every day?). A dry forest receives about 20 inches or 50 centimeters of rain each year (What is the average number of inches or centimeters possible every week?). For this reason, the types of plants and animals living in dry forests are different from those living in rain forests. Trees and animals that are adapted to drier conditions live in tropical dry forests. In this article, you will learn about a dry forest in Puerto Rico. (Just for fun '" What is the average amount of rainfall your town or area receives each year?) Specific "Thinking About the Environment" Themes:NSE Standards covered in this article:
Science Benchmarks covered in this article:
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