While just about everyone loves a good comedy or action-adventure movie, some people also like to watch documentary films―movies that are created to educate as well as entertain. You can learn about almost anything scientific by watching documentaries―from the life cycle of fungi to the location of far-flung solar systems.
Science documentaries are produced by scientists, working with directors and other members of the film crew. And scientists generally use scientific or technical words to explain what they know. You’ll notice this, too, whenever you read scientific texts. Sometimes, scientific terms are defined in the film or text. Other times they are not. For this reason, it’s a good idea to learn skills you can use to figure out a word’s meaning.
One word you’ll see often in scientific texts about wildlife is biodiversity. At first glance, that word may look like gobbledygook to you, but when you break it down into its separate parts, you should be able to guess its meaning.
After watching the video on salamanders, you already know that bio– has something to do with life. And you might recall that diversity means “the state of being varied―of containing differences.” Try putting these word parts together to define biodiversity.
Question
What do you think biodiversity means?
