Unit 1 Activities  
1 What Makes Up a Rainforest? 9 Rainforest Cryptosphere
2 Viewing the Rainforest 10 Animal/Plant Relationships
3 Making a Glossary 11 Valuing the Rainforest
4 Maps, Maps, Maps 12 Rainforest Guided Walk
5 Ancient Forests 13 Animals and Palnts at Risk
6 Biodiversity 14 Reporting on an Animal at Risk
7 Rainforest Features 15 Music Inspiring Poetry
8 Rainforest Food Web 16 Producing a Brochure

Activity 6 - Biodiversity

Focus
Tropical rainforests are renowned for more biodiversity than any other forest type.

Background
Wet Tropics rainforests contain a higher diversity of animal and plant species compared with the rest of Australia. Refer to the following tables showing species diversity:
• Animal and Plant Diversity Table
• Animal Diversity Comparisons Table
• Animals and Preferred Habitats Table
• Plant Diversity Table
• Endemic Animal Table

Pedagogy/teaching strategies
Use the Compare and Contrast Table to develop a retrieval chart.

Activity sequence
1. Students research the meaning of “biodiversity” and add this to the glossary.
2. Refer to the Animal and Plant Diversity Table. Arrange the plants and animals in descending order of their percentage of Australia’s total. Write an inference to explain the importance of the Wet Tropics region in terms of Australia’s biodiversity.
3. Using this data and a computer graphing program (eg. Excel’s Wizard) students create a plant and animal poster for the class displaying the percentage of Wet Tropics life forms in comparison with Australian populations.
4. Refer to the Plant Diversity Table. Students predict, then calculate which plant type has the most number of species for each family (average). For example the average number of species for mosses is 141/29. How does this compare to a tree family? Did you expect this result? Write an inference about these calculations to explain plants in the Wet Tropics.
5. Students research the meaning of “endemism” and add to glossary.
6. Refer to the Animals and Preferred Habitats Table. These various habitats are located in the Wet Tropics region. List the habitat which has the greatest diversity of species. Write an inference explaining these results.
7. Refer to the Endemic Animal Table and discuss. (Note: The importance of the Wet Tropics rainforest is evident in the percentage of regional endemism (25%). This means that 1 in 4 of these animals is found nowhere else in the world but in the Wet Tropics rainforest.)

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