Welcome back!
Please choose a seat where
you can learn best!
Get in the ZONE
• Prepare your learning space
• Pen, paper on desk
• Distractions cleared away
• Finish side conversations
• Check the Objectives
• Read the entire board
• Purposeful Posture
• Get oxygen to your brain
• Eyes on the speaker
Environmental Systems
• How can Houstonians make choices and
design our lives in a way that preserves
natural resources?
• Where do YOU fit in the Houston Ecosystem?
What’s YOUR role?
When you are signaled,
go get your interactive
notebook.
If it’s not here, pick up the Houston map
on Lab table 1!
Interactive Notebook is required.
Left side
• Your analysis of the
information
• Combination of information
from more than one page
Right side
• Date, Title
• Information given to you
• One big idea per page
•
Objective sheet!
Home Sweet Home: Houston!
Houston – do you remember?
• Intersection of four ecological zones:
• Prairies
• Bayous
• Forests
• Galveston Bay
Brainstorm game!
• You have ONE MINUTE with your neighbor to write
everything you can think of that has to do with the topic.
• Ready?
• The topic is: Gulf Coastal Prairie!
Gulf Coastal Prairie/
Katy Prairie
What connects us?
We are the Bayou City!
Waterways were used for
transportation
Official founding of Houston
• Allen Brothers – confluence (meeting
point) of Buffalo Bayou and White Oak
bayou – farthest point upstream where
a barge could turn around.
What resources are emphasized in
this painting?
Early economies
• Cattle
• Cotton
• Sugar
• Timber
• PLUS waterways
to move them!
1870’s: Railroads carried goods to
ships and to markets east.
• “Houston – where
17 railroads meet
the sea.” (late
1800’s marketing
moto)
Port of Houston built 1914 –
today it
moves the most foreign tonnage in the US
Wow!
• 1,000 people are
moving to Texas every
day now.
• Houston is the 4th
largest city in the
nation – but we are
growing faster than
NYC, LA and Chicago
. . .COMBINED!
August 26: Houston’s Four Ecoregions
• Find Buffalo Bayou.
• Put a star where you are sitting now!
August 27/28: Houston’s History and
Resources
• Why did the Allen Brothers start the
city of Houston at the confluence of
Buffalo Bayou and White Oak bayou?
Hint: Waterways were used for
transportation
Official founding of Houston
• Allen Brothers – confluence (meeting
point) of Buffalo Bayou and White Oak
bayou – farthest point upstream where
a barge could turn around.
August 29th: Watersheds
• Definition: An area of land drained by a body of
water.
• Watersheds are separated by changes in elevation.
• Watersheds connect ecoregions. What happens in
one part of a watershed moves to other parts.
• Storm drains carry water from streets directly to
the closest bayou.
What happens on the
prairie does not stay on
the prairie!
What things move from here to the Bay?
The majestic plastic
bag!
Watershed terms to know and
identify on any map:
• Upstream/downstream
• River source – where the water starts
• River mouth – where the water ends up
• Tributary – contributes water to a larger body of water
• Floodplain – flat area likely to flood
Check for understanding: Thumbs up
when you can answer all of these
• 1. What connects the prairie to the Bay?
• 2. What is something that moves from the prairie to the Bay
and what problem does it cause?
• 3. What is a watershed?
• 4. When will the interactive notebooks be picked up for a
grade?
• 5. How were the bayous important when Houston was first
founded?