Earth Day Fun Facts

Our favorite day is almost here—Earth Day! 🌏 This Waste Not Wednesday, we want to share some amazing facts about Earth, biome by biome, that we hope inspire gratefulness for our one and only home!

Oceans are one of five biomes, or major environments, on earth, and they’re filled with fun facts since they are so mysterious. In fact, we’ve only explored less than 5% of the world’s oceans, though they cover 70% of the earth! The majority of life on earth is actually aquatic, and over 70% of earth’s oxygen is produced by marine algae. (1)

An excess in moisture isn’t necessary for all life though. Even moss can grow on top of soil in the desert, thanks to hair-like structures called awns, which suck out moisture from the air! (2) In some places like the Atacama Desert in Chile though, it’s so dry we can’t even find cyanobacteria, a type of microorganism that lives on stones. Scientists go there in order to study how life might exist on other planets. (3)

Tundras are similar to deserts in lack of rainfall, but cold. The Arctic Tundra is home to Arctic foxes, polar bears, caribou, gray wolves, and more, and the temperatures there are between -30 and -20 degrees Fahrenheit. When the top layer of the frozen foundation called the Permafrost melts in the summer, millions of insects and birds swarm to the area. (4)

Though they may seem as empty as deserts or tundras but for the grass, grasslands are full of diverse forms of life above and below the soil. They can be temperate, but there are tropical ones too! And though it seems counterintuitive, fires in grasslands are not just a reality, but necessary to clear away dead grasses and help new life thrive. (5)

Of course trees provide better shelter than grass for many animals, which is why forests are home to 80% of land animals on earth! Trees are the real sustainable superstars, as they can remove carbon dioxide in the air, provide shade and cooling, and act as fuel and construction material. And about 25% of our medicine comes from plants found in the rainforest! (6)

It’s important to remember just how wonderful Earth is so that we know why it is we work to reduce waste and improve the health of our world. Happy Earth Day, Everyone!

(1) https://www.trafalgar.com/real-word/10-unbelievable-facts-ocean/

(2) https://phys.org/news/2016-06-moss-ultimate-toolkit.html

(3) https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2469/10-interesting-things-about-earth/

(4) https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/tundras-explained/

(5) https://apecsec.org/8-interesting-facts-about-the-grassland-biome/

(6) https://unece.org/forestry/news/10-facts-fall-love-forests#:~:text=1)%20Forests%20are%20home%20to,of%20carbon%20dioxide%20per%20year.