Curriculum Plan: What will we learn on our Rainforest Adventure?

Yan Schroen

“ When any system or organisation is in harmony, sustainability will be an emergent property. ”

Activity details

Tropical Rainforests are a treasure chest. They support the greatest diversity of living things on planet Earth and fascinating relationships between plants, animals and people.

To launch this learning adventure, behavioural ecologist Seirian Sumner invites pupils to form a new ‘science communication team’ known as the Rain-Shakers.

Their challenge starts with an exploration of this amazing eco-system as pupils consider how they themselves are connected to the rainforest through the products they use in their every-day lives. They will then go on to find out about what threatens the Amazon rainforest and what people and organisations are doing about it.

Finally, pupils will celebrate their learning by creating a ‘Great Work’. This will provide an opportunity for children to share with their community the knowledge and ideas they have developed together for positive actions to conserve the rainforests.

Objectives and curriculum links

This plan enables students to:

Develop geographical knowledge about the location and climate of the tropical rainforests
Understand the principle of diversity and how living things are connected together within the tropical rainforest eco-system
Focusing on South America, develop an understanding of the negative impacts of human activity on the rainforests, and the positive ways in which people are working to conserve them
Develop a sense of agency and that working together we can all contribute to a more sustainable future.

We've designed the lesson to help teachers cover the following subject areas:

Subjects

Years 3 and 4: Pupils will identify the position and significance of latitude, longitude, Equator, Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. Pupils will understand geographical similarities and differences through the study of human and physical geography of a region within North or South America. Physical geography: climate zones, biomes and vegetation belts, rivers. Human geography: types of settlement and land use, economic activity and trade links, the distribution of natural resources. Pupils will use maps and globes to locate countries and describe features.

Year 2: Pupils will be taught to identify that most things live in habitats to which they are suited and describe how different habitats provide for the basic needs of different kinds of plants and animals, and how they depend on each other.

Year 3: Pupils will explore the requirements of plants for life and growth (air, light, water, nutrients from soil, room to grow) and how they vary from plant to plant.

Year 4: Pupils will recognise that environments can change and that this can pose dangers to living things. Pupils should explore examples of human impact (both positive and negative) on environments, for example the positive effects of nature reserves, ecologically planned parks, and the negative effects of population and development, or deforestation

Resources

You need the following to do this activity:

your medium-term plan
a letter of invitation from Eden Project to read to your children at the beginning of the challenge
the film clip of Seirian Sumner setting this challenge - view it on YouTube or Vimeo
every-day primary school classroom resources including atlases, globes, internet access, computers
access to an outdoor environment – your school grounds, local park or other natural space. Outdoor learning is a vital and an embedded component of our curriculum plans, through which children form a personal connection to nature and the living world, making links between their local environment and the rainforest.

About The Harmony Project

This medium-term plan has been developed in partnership with Richard Dunne, founder and director of The Harmony Project.

Richard is a former state school headteacher of an Ofsted-graded ‘Outstanding School’. He has created a new way of learning inspired by nature’s principles of Harmony, principles that teach us how the world works according to natural laws and principles that enable it to be sustainable, resilient and well. These principles include interdependence, cycles, diversity, adaptation and health.

This approach to learning is framed around big questions, with subject skills and knowledge applied, and secured in a coherent, joined-up way that makes sense to children.

It's celebrated at the end of each half-term through what are called Great Works and opportunities for children to present or perform their learning outcomes in creative ways. It's an engaging and empowering approach, and we plan to work further with Richard to develop more enquiry-based medium planning documents and supporting resources in the coming months.