Teacher Notes
Needing Each Other > Print/View All Notes
In this activity, students will consider how animals and plants in the rainforest are connected to each other.
This video runs about one-half hour. You could focus on the interdependence clip, which is from 8:14-12:23.
After watching the clip of "Kratts' Creatures" , start a whole-class discussion with your students. Ask them:
- How are the ants in the video connected to the trees? (The ants live inside the tree thorns, and protect the tree from other insects that might eat its leaves.)
- How are hummingbirds in the video connected to flowers? (The hummingbirds drink the flower nectar, and spread pollen from flower to flower.)
- How are the toucans in the video connected to the trees? (The toucans eat fruit that grows on the trees.)
Next, ask students to come up with their own examples of how animals and plants in the rainforest are connected to each other. They can draw from the video or from the information they have previously recorded in their Rainforest Detective Notebooks. Add their ideas to the KWL chart.
If you wish, you can include an exploration of how humans are connected to the rainforest. Discuss with your students how people use rainforest plants to make medicines and use rainforest wood to make furniture. Explain that we eat many foods that come from the rainforest. You may even wish to bring in food from the rainforest to share with children—like pineapple, mango, bananas and chocolate. If there are concerns about sharing food in your classroom, you may instead ask children to smell spices from the rainforest. Examples of rainforest spices are cinnamon, allspice, paprika, cloves and vanilla. You may explain to children that some people live in the rainforest, and they depend on it for their habitat as well.
If you would like to extend the activity further, you may gather some books on interdependence and the rainforest and read them aloud to your class.
