Subject: S.E.S.E. - Geography
Strand: Environmental Awareness and Care
Strand Unit: Environmental Awareness / Caring for the Environment.
Theme: The Amazon Rainforest
Objectives:
The child should be enabled to:
Knowledge:
 Become familiar with the name, the location and the major physical features of The Amazon.
 Learn about different animals that belong in the Amazon.
Skills:
 Collaborate in pairs to research an Amazon Animal and to choose the most important information.
 Report findings back to the class in a coherent way.
Attitudes:
 Begin to appreciate that animals are adapted to suit their environments and begin to realise that the
Amazon is home to a wide variety of animals.
Required Materials:
PowerPoint, A4 sheets, articles, assignment sheets
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Introduction:
Ask the children what are habitats. Ask them do they know any of the different types of habitats? (E.g.
desert, hedgerow, pond, rivers, ocean, woodland, etc).
Elicit from the children why it is necessary to have different types of habitats.
Ask the children what they know about the rainforest habitat.
Show the children a map of the world’s rainforests.
Ask them can they think of any reason the tropical rainforests of the world might be clustered around the
equator (i.e. climate). Where are the temperate rainforests?
Development:
Step 1:
Discuss a map of South America with the children:
 What countries is this rainforest in?
 Can you name this rainforest?
Ask the children what they think the climate would be like in the Amazon (hint = equator).
Step 2:
Explain to the children about the different levels (or strata) of the rainforest.
Ask them to discuss in their pairs the type of animals they think would be found in the Amazon and what
level of the forest they think they would be found.
Ask each pair for an example of one animal they think could be found in the Amazon, which level they
think the animal belongs to, and why.
Give them other examples of the types of animals found at each layer of the rainforest.
Can they guess as to why the animals are suited to the different layers? (adaptations).
Step 3:
Put the children into pairs. Give each pair a research sheet based on one animal the belongs to the
Amazon. Explain to each pair that they have to pick out important points for each animal. Ask them what
kind of information would be important (e.g. layer of rainforest it lives in, food it eats, what it looks like,
interesting things, etc). Write the children’s suggestions on the board.
Tell them to go through the research sheet together and underline points they think are important. Then
tell them to go over the points again to make sure they are the best points. Can they be shortened?
Children take turns writing the information on the fact file page for each animal. Children then draw a
picture of their animal in the space provided.
Conclusion:
Each pair gets the opportunity to present their findings to the whole class (display pictures of the animals
on the IWB as the children are presenting their projects).
When each pair has presented ask the class what animal do they think sounds the most interesting. Why?
What animal is the scariest? Why? What is the least scary? Why? What can you remember about that
animal? Etc.
Assessment:
Teacher questioning and observation; did they work well in pairs? Did they interpret the information
well? Were they able to relate their findings to the class? Could they answer questions based on what they
read?
Differentiation:
Differentiate through different levels of questioning (higher order/ lower order questions)