Biosphere

The Biosphere is one of the activities in the Second Floor in JumpStart Adventures 3rd Grade: Mystery Mountain.

Since Professor Spark's Biosphere, a geodesic dome containing a closed ecological system, is too delicate to be entered, the user must fly one of several remote-controlled probes called "Explorers" through a cavernous maze to reach it. The user moves the around the maze by pressing the right, left, and up arrow keys on the keyboard. The probe has a limited amount of energy, though. Every time the probe bumps into the walls of the maze, it loses increments of energy.

There are several airlocks which Polly will only open if the user correctly answers a biology or geology question. The answers to Polly's questions become clues which allow the user to determine which of the Biosphere's five environments she has hidden a Mission Clue or Invention Points in. The environments include a desert, a rainforest, a savanna, a mountain range and an ocean. Botley notes that the Explorer appearing underground does not usually occur.