Biome Builder

The map is divided into regions, each with its own latitude, elevation and rainfall. Work out which biome those conditions produce, rainforest, desert, tundra, grassland and more, and paint each region the right type until the whole map is correct.

• Read each region's latitude, altitude and rainfall
• Deduce the biome those conditions create
• Select a region, then paint it with the chosen biome
• Color the map correctly to finish the puzzle

• Desktop: click a region to select it and click again to paint; arrow keys move the selection and Enter checks your work
• Phone & tablet: tap a region to select, then tap a biome to paint it

• Daily: one shared seeded map ranked globally
• Practice: fresh maps each round at varying difficulty

• High rainfall plus warm latitude points to forest; low rainfall to desert or grassland
• Cold comes from high latitude or high altitude, both can produce tundra
• Solve the obvious extremes first, then reason the borderline regions from their neighbors

Biome Builder teaches how climate shapes Earth's ecosystems through hands-on deduction about temperature and rainfall.

• Skills: biomes, climate, ecosystems, physical geography
• Best for: roughly grades 5–10 (ages 10–16)
• For parents & teachers: links climate to the living world it produces.

Deriving a biome from latitude, elevation and rainfall is essentially the Köppen climate classification, which sorts the world's climates by temperature and precipitation and maps almost exactly onto vegetation.

Placing the biomes yourself, from the conditions, is the original inversion.

Deriving rather than memorising is what makes the map make sense. Deserts sit at roughly 30° north and south because of atmospheric circulation, not by accident, and elevation substitutes for latitude — which is why a tropical mountain can carry tundra at its summit.

Biome Builder is an original, free browser game that teaches how climate shapes Earth's ecosystems through hands-on deduction. No download or account needed.

A free, original browser game on PlayPendium. No download, no install.