New lesson plans address the rain forest experience, animal life and effects of deforestation.
Teachers who want to bring the Amazon rain forest into their classrooms can now do so using new free-of-charge lesson plans published online by LEARN NC.
LEARN NC, an outreach program of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Education, has published three lesson plans about the Amazon rain forest: “Rain Forest Animal Movement,” “Five Senses of the Rain Forest,” and “Exploring the Effects of Deforestation in the Rain Forest.”
The lesson plans were developed at a workshop led by Sarah Carrier of N.C. State University’s Department of Elementary Education. In July 2011, Carrier and a group of educators traveled to the Peruvian Amazon with Meg Lowman, one of the world’s leading tree canopy researchers and director of North Carolina’s Nature Research Center. Carrier then shared what she learned from the experience with elementary teachers from across the state of North Carolina in a workshop at N.C. State University last March.
“LEARN NC allows workshop participants to share knowledge of the Amazon rainforest with teachers from across North Carolina,” Carrier said. “[These teachers] will continue this valuable communication about rainforest preservation with North Carolina’s elementary students.”
The lesson plans are available at http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/7574 (“Five Senses of the Rain Forest”), http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/7576 (“Exploring the Effects of Deforestation in the Rain Forest”), and http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/7577 (“Rain Forest Animal Movement”).
LEARN NC serves more than 30,000 teachers and students online daily, delivering continually updated lesson plans, best practices and classroom content to schools in 50 states, 145 countries, and all 115 North Carolina school systems via its website at www.learnnc.org.