Jungle Shop

Categories: Geography general, s1 and s2

I hope to get through most of the rainforest work with s2 today. I am also really interested at the moment in the idea of the school purchasing some rainforest if possible. Several reputable sites offer the chance to buy a few acres, and I just think it would add to pupils exeprience having some kind of ownership of and therefore responsibility for a piece of land thousands of miles away which may be under threat. In the meantime, I regularly visit this site and click to save a few acres. This works through charitable sponsorship, and has links to other sites such as The Hunger site.

For today's lesson, I want to use a diagram of the rainforest layers similar to the one in the picture but unlabelled (click on the picture for some basic info about rainforests). I aim to use the rainforest dominoes found on the sln site, and as we go round the class with the game, involve people in labelling the diagram any time we have a domino related to the layers. I hope to use this as a discussion point-why are the emergents taller than the other layers? Why do they need buttress roots? What would the forest floor be like? Finally, I haven't decvided yet, but might use a couple of clips from Planet earth.

A quick note on the exams. Int 2 had a couple of tricky questions, but overall, not too bad. I was really pleased with the Higher, particularly as I'd told several pupils that I thought coasts might come up in the RLR section. Biosphere as a choice too, which I know pleased several... a really fair paper. I haven't managed to see Int 1 or AH yet, will have a look soon. Now, time to breath out....