Curated OER
Amazon Rainforest Conservation, Brazil
Students explore the concept of understanding the effects of disturbances in an environment. In this life science lesson, students use the game Jenga to help capture the idea of environment disturbances. Students discuss the...
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How Can We Keep Our Forests Intact and Have Our Chocolate Too?
Fourth graders explore various methods of growing and harvesting rainforest foods in order to sustain its biodiversity. They discuss the various uses for trees from several viewpoints. Students research chocolate demand and land use...
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The Need For Shelter
Fifth graders build a shelter to protect themselves from rain. They perform durability and water proof testing on the shelters. They make observations of plants found in the Amazon rainforest.
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The Kapok (Ceiba) Tree
Students explore the rainforest. They listen to The Great Kapok Tree and create a web using Inspiration software. They research kapok trees and create posters to make others aware of the plight of the rainforest. They role-play the...
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African Rain Forests
Students draw a picture and label the layers of a rain forest in Africa.
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Adding Sound to a Story
Students read a short story about the rain forest. They listen to a recording of rain forest sounds and break into several smaller groups to create a soundtrack to the rainforest story.
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Creating your Frog's Environment
Students discuss where frogs can live. After the discussion, they create an environment for a frog using items of their choice. Some may include: construction paper, paint, magazines. The environment could even be 3-D. The key to this...
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People and Plants
Students examine the uses of plants from many different biomes, particularly, rain forests to uncover data about the production of new drugs and the cross-cultural sharing of foods. A rain forest food festival reinforces the concept of...
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Rain Forests
Students watch a PowerPoint presentation about the layers of the rainforest. They create a paper rainforest in the classroom. They take notes from the presentation and write a paragraph to include in a layer book. They create a...
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Regions of South America
Students explore facts about South America in the four lessons of this unit. Booklets are created from the materials produced as the class delves into the topic.
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Rainforest Problem
Third graders use a hypothetical story in order to create a context for the lesson. The story presents a problem that needs to be solved. They write a letter to a government official as part of the lesson.
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Where's the Water?
Fifth graders conduct an investigation into water purification during a role play situation in an Amazon Rainforest. They design a scientific experiment for cleaning and filtering water.
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TE Activity: Built to Last?
Fifth graders test the shelters that were built in a prior activity. They determine the level of durability and water resistance of these shelters through a scientific investigation.
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Information Fluency
Third graders pretend a major trading card company has asked them to help gather information on animals who live in the rainforest. In groups, they select an animal and use the sources given to them to gather the information. They create...
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Protecting Our Planet
Students examine the impact of pollution. In this pollution lesson, students watch Protecting Our Planet, then participate in a simulation of the effect of pollution on a variety of organisms.
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Making Paper
Students brainstorm why trees are important to humans and the value of forests. They then participate in making paper in class. They may decorate the paper adding glitter, dried flowers, etc.
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Forest Ecosystem
Students become familiar with the temperate rainforest. For this forest ecosystem lesson, students identify the producers, consumers and decomposers in the forest ecosystem. Students sort cards and identify the trophic level...
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Producers -- Focus on Trees
Students examine the needs of trees and plants. In this forest ecosystem lesson students use seedlings to investigate the basic necessities of plants. They discuss the consequences of these basic needs not being met.
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Jumanji
Third graders read the book, Jumangi. Then they divide into groups of four or five and choose a habitat - desert, wetlands, Arctic/Antarctic, etc. Then each group can research the habitat to learn what kind of animals live there.
California Academy of Science
Plants: Hanging Tough
Learning about the rainforest can be more fun than you think. The class discusses vocabulary-in-context as they cut cardboard boxes, destined to become part of a rainforest model. Small groups of children color, cut, and construct...
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The Prairie Climate
Ninth graders research the average temperature and precipitation of a prairie region to determine the type of climate it is, and how it differs from other biomes. They examine the types of adaptions animals have made to live in the...
Chicago Botanic Garden
Unit 4 Pre-Assessment
Pre-assessments are great to help teachers determine what information their classes lack, what misconceptions they have, and how in depth to teach specific concepts. The first in a five-part series is a pre-assessment of middle...
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Products from the Rainforest
Second graders write a story about the journey a food has from the rainforest to your table. In this food lesson plan, 2nd graders research different foods and products that come from the rainforest and discover how it ended up in their...
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Stopping Deforestation in the Amazon: A Publicity Campaign
Young scholars investigate the environment by designing a group project. In this ecology lesson, students identify the man made threats to the Amazon while reading environmentally conscience vocabulary terms. Young scholars...