Founders of the Children’s Rain Forest Unit 1: Cooperation and Competition By: Katrina Feickert Charles Mack Elementary, EGUSD

Activating Prior Knowledge Ecology: Scientific study of the distribution and abundance of living organisms and how the distribution and abundance are affected by interactions between the organisms and their environment.living organisms interactions

Background Information By the time a rain forest tree is one hundred years old, it has provided enough oxygen for a human being to breathe for twenty years. More than one-quarter of the medicinal drugs prescribed in the United States come from rain forest plants. Most of the plants that have cancer-fighting properties grow in tropical rain forests.

Background Information Though tropical rain forests cover only a small part of the earth, half the world’s plants and animal species are found within them. Many foods come from rain forests. Both coffee and chocolate are products of the rain forest. Coffee plants Coca plants

Preview and Prepare CluesProblemsWonderings school children rain forest nonfiction destruction need money How will students “found” a rain forest? Read aloud the title and the names of the author and illustrator. Browse the entire selection. What might the story have to do with cooperation and competition?