How to Use the Rainforest Connection
The Rainforest Connection
is more than just a month-long conversation by e- mail between a scientist and
students. For some classes it became a way of life, an armchair journey to an
exotic place, and the opening of doors to local explorations in ecology and environmental
science. Sometimes this great potential is not immediately obvious. Or life is
too full of other pressing concerns, so thinking out strategies to use yet another
resource can be a burden. We'd like to help you out. The following sections are
a collection of ideas to help teachers get the most out of the Rainforest Connection
(RFC). Teachers using RFC materials have developed a great variety of approaches
that:
- integrate rainforest
lessons into existing curriculum,
- support the development
of basic skills,
- give students real
reasons to think and communicate, and
- provide a unifying
theme that supports understandings of the "big picture" in science, while
also impacting positively on many curricular areas.
We hope that this sharing
of plans will enable you to implement a rainforest unit easily, and that you and
your students will enjoy it. Please send us your lesson ideas, if you would like
to share them with other teachers.
