Medium-term plan: Why should we protect the biodiversity of the rainforest?
Bring a taste of the incredible diversity of the world’s rainforests into your classroom with this enquiry of learning.
Our rainforests are some of the most biodiverse places on the planet – and some of the most threatened. They are home to half of the species that live on land, but they are shrinking at an alarming rate. The learning enquiry set out in this medium-term planning allows students to explore the staggering biodiversity of these incredible places, and to begin to understand how all the living things within our rainforest ecosystems are deeply interdependent.
Through geometry activities that provide a way into the learning each week, students can engage with and recreate some of the shapes and patterns found in the rainforest, which we see repeated throughout the natural world.
The science content contained in this medium-term planning links to National Curriculum objectives for KS2, focusing on the link between biodiversity and healthy, resilient food chains, and exploring animal classification. In geography, students have the opportunity to develop their atlas skills to find out where in the world our rainforests are and to learn about some of their climatic and physical features. They go on to look at the impact of human activity on these unique habitats and on the lives of the indigenous people who live there.
In English, students retell their own rainforest stories, using the illustrated book The Great Kapok Tree by Lynne Cherry (Voyager Books) as a key text. The IT & Computing content of this medium term planning is deeply linked to the focus in Music, exploring how instruments and the human voice can be used to recreate the sights and sounds of the rainforest, then using audio recording equipment and audio editing software to create a class rainforest soundscape, which forms the Great Work celebrating the learning.
This enquiry links to Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 15 Life on Land.
