teaching natural history in the rainforest

8/3/2019 Teaching natural history in the Rainforest

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@PABLOEALARCON

Teaching in the

RainforestSome lesson plans for teaching naturalhistory in tropical environments

Pablo Alarcn

10/01/2002

These lesson plans were made in 2002 for training nature tourist guides by a novel educator

(me).


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Natural History Lesson Plan

Adaptation, Evolution and Natural Selection

Objectives: By the end of this lesson, SWBAT (students will be able to):

Define the concept of evolution.Describe the process of natural selection.

Describe the speciation mechanism.

Define adaptation.

Relate 10 organisms adaptations to their environment.

Materials:

Props for teachers costumes of doctor, teacher and police officer.

3 sets of flashcards with illustrations of plants, insects, mice, snakes,hawks, and bacteria.

Flashcards with illustration about organism characteristics or

adaptations.Markers.

Color pencils.

Poster paper.

Diagrams about Natural Selection and Speciation.

Time: 45 hours.

Warm up:

Review:

1- Niche:a) Skit: The teachers represent different roles with costumes. They

explain the importance of each role in the society. For example:

Teacher 1: DoctorTeacher 2: TeacherTeacher 3: Police officer

Teacher 1: I am a doctor. With no doctors, all the people become ill and

die.Teacher 2: I am a teacher. With no teachers, no education, etc, etc.Teacher 3: I am a police officer. With no police officers, violence, death,etc.

All the teachers: We are a food chain.

b) Then the teachers explain the roles and importance of each organismin an ecosystem. The teacher should use at least one example of eachpart of the food chain (producers, consumers herbivore, carnivore,omnivore - and decomposers), showing flashcards of those organismsused in the past lesson. Example:

Insect: Im a plant. My niche is , with no plants, no .


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Fish: Im a fish. My niche is , with no fish, no .Crocodile:

Bacteria:

All the characters: We are a food chain.

c) Make 3 groups. Each group has a set of flashcards with illustrationsof a plant, insect, mouse, snake, hawk, and bacteria. The studentshave to act or explain the importance of each organism in theecosystem, and their niche. At the end of this activity the Naturaliststarts a discussion about the balance in the ecosystems.

2- Ecological Organization: Class activity. The teacher review and asks thestudents the terms: organism population communityecosystem biomebiosphere. The same example of the last lesson could be used.

Adaptation and Evolution

Presentation: Adaptation and Evolution. The teacher explains the advantages ofdifferent parts of the body of several organisms. The examples could be:

Giraffe and its neck.

Elephant and its proboscis.

Owl and its big eyes, and rotating head.

Practice 1: Make 3 groups. The teacher assigns to the students a set of organisms.They can be a howler monkey, a crocodile, an armadillo, a horse, a

jaguar and a hummingbird. Each group of students makes a poster anddraw the organisms and explain their adaptations.

Practice 2: Fantasy species. This activity requires an extra teacher. Make 4 groups.The purpose is to give a set of characteristics to each group, they have todraw in a poster a fantasy organism with those characteristics (that arethe organisms adaptations), and present to the entire class why those

characteristics are important for their survival. The characteristics can beseparated in several categories:

Characteristic Example

Teeth Fangs, no teeth, flat teethColor Blue, Pink, Back, GreenEyes Cat like, round pupilLegs Jumping legs, running legs

Before the students start with the activity, the teacher should model firsthow to make the fantasy species, and show them one picture pre made ofa crazy animal with, for example, cat like eyes, black skin, jumping legs,and fangs; and explain why this animal has all these adaptations.Another fun addition is to assign crazy names to those species.

Presentation: Plan adaptation. Teacher explains that not only the animals but also theplants have adaptations. Example: the coconut palm has flexible trunk


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for wind, and its coconuts can float, so the sea can disperse them. Thecactus has spines to protect itself for predators and avoid water loss inarid conditions.

Practice 1: In pairs the students go out, find 2 plants, and sketch them in their

notebooks.

Production: The students present their sketches and the adaptations to the class.

Natural Selection

Presentation: Natural Selection. This could be covered with a story of diagrams abouthow some individuals that have some advantage can survive and theother that dont have it, die. Example: We have a group of rabbits of the

same species; most of them have short legs and short ears, and some of

them have long legs and long ears. It seems that these characteristics areirrelevant, but when a predator appears, these factors are so important:the long ears are a good advantage to notice the predator, and the longlegs are crucial to escape running. The key phrase is: How the natural

selection works? If you have good adaptation, you are alive; if you

dont have good adaptations, you are dead.

Practice 1: Relay race. Make pair and tie their legs to make 3-legged couples vs.free legs or jumping students. Another students could be predators.Then compare these characteristics.

Practice 2: Suppose that the fact of curling the tongue is crucial for survival (i.e. youare a frog). How many students can curl their tongues? How manycould survive in these conditions?

Practice 3: Relay race. Three groups: one group walking backwards, other crawling,and the last jumping. Who wins?

Closure: Teacher explains that the birds come from the dinosaurs. Someillustrations are important to explain these. The dinosaurs are absentnowadays, but they changed with several adaptations, and today these

organisms modified are the birds with another adaptations.

Presentation: Speciation. Continuing with the example of the rabbits, the teacher canexplain that in every generation the rabbits change until the first onescould be totally different with the last ones. This process of change andcreation of new species is speciation.

Practice 1: Take the entire class. Act a skit to represent a natural disaster. The classis splitting in 2 with an imaginary barrier between them. Then separateeach group by different characteristics: green subgroup, black subgroup,

tongue curlers, nontongue curlers.


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Closure: Clarify the concept. One example could be the story of lizards that crossa river through a log. Then the log falls in the river, and the lizards startto change in each shore of the river. After millions of years, the twogroups of lizards are totally different and can be considered two species.

Comments: This last part of the lesson was difficult in the NGTP (Nature GuideTraining Program) Tikal program in Guatemala. The creation Bibleconcepts, the low English level in this part of the course, and the abstractmeanings are some reasons to complicate the teacher labor teachingevolution and speciation. These topics could be clarified in a nigh lessona NH (Natural History) discussion in the local language.


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Forest Succession and Stratification;

Values of Tropical Rainforest

Objectives: Students will be able toExplain the process of forest succession (disturbance, colonization,secondary forest, old growth forest)

The two principal types of disturbances (human-induced vs. natural),and the vertical stratification of canopy layers in old growth forest(emergent trees, canopy, subcanopy, understory).

Students will also be able to understand the values of tropicalrainforest: soil retention, water recharge, climate control, carbonsink.

Materials:

Succession posters

Succession classification cards

Possible props for models or demonstrations

Tarps or layers to use as canopy layers

Photographs of jungle canopy, if available

Wheel to rotate forest stratification positions

Role cards for creation of canopy

Supplies for making a canopy

Water

Flashlight

Sets of cotton and dirt and preprepared cotton in ziplock for values oftropical rainforest presentation and practice.

Time: 4 hours

Presentation:Forest Succession. Ask the class, What is succession? And presentthe four stages, starting with disturbances, by using four posters with bigdrawings of each stage. Divide disturbances into human-induced vs.natural and have the class brainstorm a list of each type. Go on a mini-tour around the site, discussing examples of each stage.

Practice: In groups of four, pass out sets of flashcards, jumbled. Each setcontains: four colored cards, each with a name of a forest stage on it;and 17 or so examples to arrange under each of the four categories.(Another Forest Succession lesson plan has more details on this.) Wheneach group has finished classifying the cards under the stage headings,discuss and clarify.

Production: Also in groups of four (perhaps different groups), each group is assigneda type of disturbance (e.g. slash-and-burn, hurricane, clear cutting) and asmall working area. Students create a model of old growth forest and

represent their specific disturbance with props or a theater skit. Each skit


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continues at least through the creation of old growth forest again.Everyone in each group must take an active role in the presentation.

Wrap-up: Let students discuss the concepts enough that they could explain it to atourist.

Presentation: Stratification.Using sheets, tarps, whatever, have the class help create a model of atriple canopy. Discuss how there is less light under each successive layer(and have students stand under each layer as you build it, from the topdown.) Add a few emergent trees (branches poking above) to the scene.Show pictures of the canopy from above, if available, to demonstrate thelayer-like aspect of it. Emphasize that these are the layers within the old-growth stage. In the classroom, brainstorm a list of species typicallyfound in each layer. Discuss the characteristics of some species as a wayof getting to general truths about each layer e.g. leaves in the canopy

tend to be smaller, and leaves in the understory larger, because of lightand water availability. Discuss leaf size and shape, the nature ofdifferent habitats, etc.

Practice: Assign four positions to each of the layers: standing stretching up foremergent trees, arms in a T for the canopy, arms in a T and squatting forthe subcanopy, and crouching in a ball for the understory. Call out alayer and have the class all do that position and repeat the layer name.Switch it up. Have student callers. Make it an elimination game.Assign numbers 1-4 to the students, and with a wheel in front of theclass, rotate which role each number plays, so you have a 4-level forestall the time, but with different students playing different roles at differenttimes.

Presentation: Biological Importance of Canopy(1) With a t-shirt, shine a flashlight through the fabric to demonstrate

that the light gets filtered. Two layers filters the light that muchmore, three layers more, etc. Discuss the benefits and effects of this.

(2) Pour water through the shirt to show how a fast rain is slowed by thecanopy into a manageable drip underneath. Discuss effects andbenefits.

(3)

Brainstorm the different habitats that are created for all sorts ofdifferent species by the canopy

Practice: A skit to create the canopy. Assign roles to the students by passing outcards: maybe three birds, five trees of different sorts, a vine, a monkey,three insects, an epiphyte, two frogs, a bat, an anteater, etc. Create acanopy by having each student act out his role in a set space. Mayhemno doubt ensues. Change roles if the students are up for repeating it.

Production: Create a diorama. In small groups, students create a 4-layered canopywith whatever materials they feel like using: clay, paper and glue, leaves

and sticks, all of the above. Each diorama must have 4 layers, perhapseven with specific species or characteristics, and maybe each must have


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specific habitats for animals and plants, and each must get subjected tothe flashlight test and the water test for light and water penetration.

Presentation: Values of Tropical Rainforest. Using a sponge of cotton, demonstratethe four values we teach. The concepts here are more important for the

students than the terms for each:(1) Soil retention: hold the cotton above a pile of dirt and pour water on

it; the dirt stays. Compare with pouring the water at the same speeddirectly on the dirt. Lo and behold, the dirt gets blasted awaywithout protection. Discuss with students: what does this mean forthe forest?

(2) Water recharge: gently squeeze the cotton; water drips out slowlynow. The dirt pile below can handle it. Repeat the water pouringand recharging demonstration with the sounds sluuuuuuurp [cotton

absorbing], drip drip drip [water recharge on squeeze], ahhhhhhh[dirt taking the water no problem]. Have the class practice a

sluuurp drip drip drip ahhhhhh song and dance, maybe, and havethem explain the importance of each step of it.

(3) Climate control: put the wet cotton in a ziplock back with plenty ofair and seal it. Then, cooking-show style, pull out another ziplockwith wet cotton inside that you-ve already let sit in the sun for a big.Discuss the condensation: what might this mean for a rainforest?Yes, more rain.

(4) Carbon sink: use the cotton as a rag to wipe up all the dirt. Clean!Explain that the forest cleans the air for us; maybe demonstrate asimple carbon cycle by having one teacher be a plant and another aperson, and when one gives a big breath out, the other takes a big

breath in, lovin it, and then they switch on the next breath. Classcan be divided into teams or groups and practice this clean happybreathing.

(5) Brief discussion, if necessary, to review the values of biodiversity:e.g. uses (like medicine, construction, food) and benefits from thebeauty (tourism, $$$, etc.)

Practice: Students, with their own cotton and water and dirt and ziplocks, repeatthe presentation on their own, in small groups, explaining to each otherwhat is going on.

Production: In small groups, assign a value (e.g. carbon sink) to each group and havethem, after some preparation, perform a skit to the rest of the class,which demonstrates and explains that value. Everyone must take anactive role in each presentation.


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Geology

Objectives: SWBAT

Name the seven continents and map a general map of the worldName the 4 layers of the earth and their characteristics

Understand the terms plate tectonics

Understand the formation of volcanoes

Understand the formation of faults and earthquakes

Time: 4 hours

Materials:

Watermelon with a world drawn upon it with permanent marker

Flashcards of the seven individual continents and their shapes

Flashcards with each of the earths different layers on itLong rope

Students country big map

Tub of water

Volcano model (clay worked well)

4 geologic puzzle maps on sheets of stiff cardboard, draw the earthas it is today, and as it was at different time periods, 50million yearsago, 100mya, 200mya. Then cut these maps into puzzle pieces (besure to keep the pieces separate or they are useless)

Presentation: A world map would be great. But essentially walk them through theseven continents and give them the location of a few main countries inthe world.

Practice: Have them break into pairs and practice naming the seven continentswith the flashcards.

Production: On a blank piece of paper, have them take 20mins to copy the world mapto the best of their abilities. Make sure they label the continents, andthen have them glue it into their notebooks.

Presentation: The layers of the earth. Explain to them the earth is like a watermelonwith different layers. Take a small slice of the watermelon earth and tellthem the thin green part is the crust, the white part is the mantle, the redpart with no seeds is the outer core and the red part with seeds is theinner core. Explain to them the basic characteristics of each layer, asdescribed in the NH curriculum.

Practice 1: With the layer flashcards break them up into different partners forpractice.

Practice 2: On four separate pieces of paper have the characteristics of the layerswritten. Lay the papers out on the ground with lots of space in between.

The teacher or a volunteer student has to call out a layer and all the


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students have to run to the correct characteristic sheet. This should bedone in small groups.

Production: On another sheet of paper, have them draw a cross section of the Earthwith the 4 layers and their characteristics. Have them glue it into their

notebook.

Presentation: Plate tectonics. Good luck, this one takes creativity as many of themhave never even conceived of this idea. Take the watermelon and try tocut it into the various major plates of the world, North American, SouthAmerican, African, Australian. Scoop out the meat and leave only thecrust with the drawings on it. Float them in the tub of water. With thisas your main prop, explain to them that the plates are huge pieces of landthat are floating on the surface of the mantle. Like the pieces ofwatermelon crust, they are moving very slowly. The Earth lookeddifferent in the past because of this motion. This will be very difficult

for them to grasp, so this presentation will take a long time.

Practice 1: With the puzzle maps of the Earth at different geologic periods, breakthem into four groups and have them reassemble each puzzle

Production: When they have all finished, each group has to make a presentation oftheir Earth, describing where each of the continents was located and howit was changing.

Presentation: Volcanoes. With plate tectonics in mind, explain that a volcano is amountain with lava inside. Sometimes there are eruptions. Explain thatthey are caused when two plates hit and push large amounts of the crustup into the air. Lava comes up from the mantle and explodes out. Theuse of the volcano model will help a lot, and drawings on poster boardwill help a lot also.

Production: They have a half hour to prepare a presentation on the life of a volcano.It can be a skit, a clay model, a drawing, a song, but it needs to benarrated and include all aspects the teacher explained.

Presentation: Earthquakes. Earthquakes occur when there is lateral movement along

two plates (sliding along two plates). Explain that a fault is the contactspot between two plates. There is a lot of tension building up over theyears, and then suddenly there is a releasean earthquake. This can be

demonstrated sliding a rug (a plate) with some house models on it.When the rug is shacked they can see the movement and imagine andearthquake.

Practice 1: Have the students in two lines facing each other. The students areshoulder to shoulder. Grab the hands of the person facing you. Slowly,one line moves in one direction, shuffling sideways, the other line movesthe opposing way. Make sure no one lets go of the hands! This is to

explain how tension builds up over time and eventually, someone willrelease, an earthquake.


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Practice 2: Tug of war with the rope. A fun way of explaining tension forces and

sudden releases.

Production: With the teachers help, the students try to draw a large scale geologic

map of their country. It should include the main plates, the mainvolcanic areas, the main faults, and anything else the teachers feel worthmentioning. Then have them glue it in their books.

Comments: For our students this was a huge complex lesson. Before the class, theydidnt know the name of the planet they lived on, nor could they name a

continent. And due to their creationist beliefs, telling them the world ischanging and is 4 billion years old was anti-religion. There are manyobstacles so the teachers need to be patient and creative, but realize thatsome students may well understand, but might choose not to believe aword you say.


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Astronomy

Objectives: Students will be able toname this planet and the sun, understand the

daily spinning of the earth and its rotation around the sun once a year,understand the makeup of our solar system, with other planets, say tworeasons why the earth is the only known planet with life, and understandhow stars are different from planets.

Materials: One very large paper/cardboard cutout sun, flashlight and model spherefor earth (tennis ball will do), cards for morning noon afternoon eveningand night, table-top solar system chart with month labels for earthsorbit; materials for illustrating the months; a set of month cards for eachgroup (4 or 5), space to make a big solar system and hold runningactivities, one chair, two bottles of water.

Time: 4 hours

Presentation: With the big cardboard sun, and of course the real sun, introduce theconcepts that the sun is very, very, very, very big, very, very, very,

very, very hot, and very, very, very far from earth. Demonstrate day

and night with a light shined against a spinning globe: half is light, halfis dark.

Practice: Put the big sun off to one side. Have everyone form a circle, with theirbacks to the center, and link arms. Have the circle rotate slowly to the

left, with each student noticing when he can see the sun and when hecannot. Put signs on the ground at points outside the circlecorresponding to morning noon afternoon evening and night.

Spin the circle a few times so students get used to seeing the relativemovement of the big sun, even though its actually staying still.

Presentation:Earths rotation around the sun. With a big table chart, perhaps with 3Dobjects representing Earth and the Sun, demonstrate how the earth rotatesaround the sun once a year. Use signs to label each months area inspace as the earth passes through, arriving back at January.

Practice: (optional) Have the students draw pictures for each month, completewith the local weather conditions. Lay the pictures in a big circle aroundthe big sun, and have each member of the class walk around and describethe weather to someone standing by the sun and asking, at each month,How is the weather?

Practice: Distribute to small groups a complete set of month labels. Have thegroups lay them in a circle in the proper order, and have one person standin the center as a sun (maybe with golden props, booming voice,whatever). The others in the group space themselves out and play Earth,rotating around. The Sun asks Hows the weather? Each of the Earths

in each group then replies based on what month hes in. Then they


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advance. (Perhaps a musical chairs variation would work here to makethis a little more fun?)

Production: Combine the motions of daily spinning and annual rotation: In a bigspace, put the sun down in the center. Demonstrate going around the sun

in a big orbit while also spinning on your axis counter-clockwise.Demonstrate, counting each day and moving 1/12 of the way around, atypical January. Then have fun with it: everyone takes a turn seeing ifthey can make it to 365 spins in one orbit, as fast as they can. Everyonemakes it until about 20, looks ridiculous, gets absurdly dizzy, fallspathetically, and has a lot of respect for all the movements of the planet.

Presentation: The solar system. With the big table-top model and props, demonstratehow other planets are going around the sun the same as earth, only withsmaller or bigger orbits.

Practice: In groups of two, students are assigned planets and have to make papercutouts of them. Help each group with the characteristics of whatever

planet theyve been assigned. Have them draw on their cutout to convey

atmosphere, weather, temperature, anything about their planet. (Whenwe did this, accuracy of the information was not terribly valued onlythe idea that other planets have very different characteristics from Earth,from gassy and stormy to rocky and frozen.)

Production: Each group presents its planet to the others, and everyone forms a bigsolar system with lots of concentric orbits of different sizes.

Presentation: Reasons for Life. Have the class brainstorm why Earth is the onlyknown planet with life: what is essential for all life? Demonstrate with acooking stove or fire that too close is too hot, too far is too cold, and justright is just right for life. Also, use a bottle of water to demonstrate thatall known life needs water.

Practice: (optional) In a big area, have the group find the happy temperature spotrelative to the sun, and ask them what else they need (water).

Production: Race: In a big solar system, groups of three students have to race all the

way to one end to get one of two bottles of water, and then they have torace back and try to sit in the one chair thats located the right distancefrom the sun. (So three students, two water bottles, and one chair. Awinner has both water and the chair. If you dont get the water, you can

still try to prevent the other two from winning.) After each race, thegroup determines if life is possible: does the student who made it intothe chair also have water? This proved to be a fun race, if a little violent.You might pass a you-cant-move-the-chair rule, since that makesmore sense with the whole lesson. On the other hand, its awfully funny

when they can pull the chair out from under the sitter at the lastminute


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Presentation: Stars. Present the word star to the class, in case they dont all know it.

Do a guided discovery to learn what a star is: Hows it different from a

planet? Whats the closest start? How does the sun look so differentfrom a star? Demonstrate with the big sun cutout, first pressed right intothe students faces, and then 50 meters away. So every star is big and hot;

but only the sun is close enough for us to notice. The other stars arevery very very very very very very [etc] far.

Practice/Production: Go out at night with the class, looking at stars (and planets, etc.).

Comments/Variations:This is all a little basic, depending on your group. Constellations are leftfor a different lesson. A fun lesson, and though its not the most packed

with information, for at least a few of our students these were mind-blowing (and therefore quite difficult) concepts. For others, of course,the whole thing was a joke.


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Considering Different Points of View

Objectives: SWBAT look at an environmental issue from all perspectives and be able

to give valid arguments for all positions.

Time: 4 hours

Materials: Very little, only a cue card for each student, describing who they aregoing to act out.

Presentation: An environmental issue. Get the students to come up with some of theenvironmental issues from their region. Deforestation, pollution,hunting, whatever they come up with, write it on the board. Now explainhow some people see issues differently, and help them through this.

Explain that to some families, hunting animals is the only source ofincome, so they think it is OK, etc

Practice: For one of the issues above, on two blank pieces of paper, write For andAgainst. Do the same for a different issue. Split the class into fourgroups. Each group gets one piece of paper. They have to come up witharguments defending and attacking both sides of the two chosen issues.Every five minutes have the papers rotate so that each group gets to writeon all four perspectives. Have them make presentations at the endtalking about all the arguments raised.

Production: Mock trial. The idea is to make a mock trial of an environmental issue.Every student will have a role, some are prosecuting lawyers, somedefending lawyers, some are witnesses, some are the accused. Theteachers need to think in advance of a role for everyone and write it outon the cue cards. The topics can be wide ranging. E.g. two people areaccused of cutting trees within park boundaries. A man is accused ofhunting and killing endangered animals. An industry is accused ofpolluting a river. Anything. Explain the way a court works to thestudents and the order of events, with cross-examinations, and witnesses,etcThen give them a couple of hours to prepare, with the teachers

circulating every once in awhile to help out, give advice. When they are

ready, the teachers become the judges and jury and they call court tosession.

Comments: This is a great class because it is so student centered. They really getinto it, with costumes, material evidence, props etcJust make sure they

stay focused on the subject at hand.

teaching natural history in the rainforest

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