Humans only make up 0.01 percent of all life forms on Earth. We sure know how to make an impact though! An episode of the It's Okay to be Smart series examines the proportion of different species that inhabit Earth. The narrator compares the proportion of numbers and biomass of different life groups such as plants, animals, and bacteria.

Concepts

species, animal species, biomass, mass, dominant traits, scale

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Additional Tags

science

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Instructional Ideas

• Post to a class website for individual viewing
• Have pupils create a pie chart of the different life forms in the video

Classroom Considerations

• Expects a strong understanding of percents and proportions

• This video is hosted on YouTube

Pros

• Provides reference information to facilitate further study
• Discusses the historical proportions and future predictions in addition to current day percentages

Cons

• None

Common Core

SL.9-10.2 SL.11-12.2 RST.9-10.7 RST.11-12.7