Geography Rainforests

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Rainforests School Workshops

School Workshops for physical and environmental geography

Rainforests are ancient ecosystems, virtually undisturbed for millions of years. They are the lungs of the planet, home to countless species of plants, animals, insects and birds. When you hear the word 'rainforest' you immediately think of the Amazon basin and its huge tropical rainforest, sadly being felled for its precious timber and to clear space for agriculture, at an alarming rate. But there are also large rainforests in Africa and Australia, smaller temperate rainforests in New Zealand and the United States, and even incredibly rare rainforest environments in parts of the UK.

Part of what makes rainforests so valuable and also so precarious, is the ratio between their land area and the amount of biodiversity they contain. Removing even a small part of their mass results in an awful loss of plant and wildlife. At present, tropical rainforests and temperate rainforests cover just 3% of the world's land area.

Help your class learn where to find the world's tropical rainforests, about the wildlife that lives in the tree canopy, the pressures from logging, agriculture and development, the various management strategies and ways in which the rainforests are protected. And find out exactly how much rain falls in a rainforest (slightly less than in the UK?)

Study the Rainforests with your class in a number of different ways:

• Meet creatures who live in the rainforest
• Learn about the forest ecosystem
• Discuss rainforest deforestation
• Find out the role rainforests play in global warming
• Hear how people live and work in the rainforests
• Think about how a rainforest environment differs from our own

These workshops can help you look in more detail at the topic of rainforests to help support your classroom work.

Link a Rainforests workshop to your curriculum topics in Physical, Human and Environmental Geography, Sustainability, Biology and more.