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 11 - Valuing the Rainforest

Focus
We all may have respect for the Wet Tropic World Heritage Area. However, we often don’t know how we feel about something until we lose it.

Background
This activity is a drama designed to enable students to reflect on the values of the World Heritage Area. The Rainforest Benefits Table and the short video interview How do People Use the Rainforest? are useful resources.

How do People Use the Rainforest?

You will need a rainforest twig festooned with moss, lichen and fungi.

Pedagogy/teaching strategies
Sharing Circle:
• Seat students in a circle and pass around a rainforest twig. Each student describes the twig using their senses.
• Students pass around the twig a second time. This time the students give a use for the twig.
• Review the purposes of the last two rounds – description and use.
• Pass the twig around again, this time students describe how they feel about the twig. When the twig has gone around half the circle, grab it and break it into many pieces and place the pieces back into the forest.

Activity sequence
1. Pass the twig around three circuits of the group.
2. After the twig is thrown into the forest, use a tape recorder to collect students’ emotive objections.
3. To provide balance, suggest that when the children were first shown the twig – it was just a stick. But once we looked more closely at it and discussed its description and uses, it may have become more valued to us.
4. Back at the classroom list the group’s responses from the Sharing Circle activity into two categories:
• angry and emotive comments based on morals and ethics
• other categories such as use, recreation and ecological.
5. Introduce the Rainforest Benefits Table showing a wide range of benefits to humans that may not have been considered by the students. Explain the meaning and significance of the categories.
6. Divide the class into groups, each using the internet to research the following groups: Greenpeace, CAFNEC, Wildlife Preservation Society, TREAT, Land Care, Integrated Catchment Management Associations, Aboriginal Land Councils, local councils and the tourism industry. Each group choose which of the three categories in the Rainforest Benefits Table aligns most closely with their group’s activities. Share this with the class group.

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