edHelper.com Life Science Animal and Biomes Basics Theme Unit

The Everglades

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The Everglades
Reading Level

	edHelper's suggested reading level:	grades 6 to 8
	Flesch-Kincaid grade level:	9.97

Vocabulary

	challenging words:		drainage, excess, ecology, nonliving, erosion, survival, continental, dependable, reduction, directly, estimate, extinction, twentieth, natural, original, environment
	content words:		Kissimmee River, Lake Okeechobee, United States, Seminole Indians, National Park, North America, Everglades National Park, World Heritage Site

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The Everglades By Cindy Grigg

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¹     The Everglades is a wetland biome or ecosystem in south Florida. An ecosystem includes all the populations that live in an area along with physical factors in the environment. Physical factors are the nonliving things in an environment. Soil, oxygen, water, amount of sunlight, and temperature are some examples of the physical factors of an ecosystem.
 
²     Because the populations in the Everglades ecosystem interact with one another, any changes in a community affect all the different populations that live there. The study of how living things interact with one another and with their environment is called ecology. Ecologists, scientists who study ecology, look at how all the living and nonliving factors in an ecosystem are related.
 
³     In places, the water in the Everglades measures over fifty miles wide, but it averages only a few inches deep. It was formed by the Kissimmee River flowing into Lake Okeechobee and spilling southward over its banks, forming the broad Everglades wetlands. It has the richest assortment of plants, animals, fish, snakes, amphibians, and insects found in the continental United States. Its most famous resident is probably the alligator.

Paragraphs 4 to 7:
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