Learning Technique: Interactive Textbook - Geography

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Instructions

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This interactive textbook is designed to inspire your students to immerse themselves in the structure of the rainforest. Encourage them to explore the scene at their own pace, preferably with headphones on, and space to engage with the interactive videos.

Interactive Textbook: Geography

Learning Technique

Structure of the Rainforest

Emergent Layer:

This is the highest or top layer of the rainforest, starting at 45m from the ground. The emergent layer has long towering trees of 70-100m, which are taller than most other trees in a forest. The emergent layer is hot, because of the sunlight, breezy and wet - which makes it a hard place to live! 

Canopy Layer:

The canopy layer is the second tallest, at around 30-40m above the ground. This layer is the host to the majority (60-90%) of all living species. The rate of photosynthesis is also the highest up here because of the amount of sun that cascades between the emergent layer.

The canopy later is essental for maintaining the climate of the rainforest, with the leaves protecting the forest floor from the intense sun's heat, flooding and dry winds, keeping the layers beneath moist and shaded.

This layer contains overlapping trees such as Lianas (rainforest vines) that function as a stable ground or 'floor' for the animals living there. Epiphytes also grow around the branches of trees and other plants which allow animals to climb amongst them. 

Understory Layer:

This layer lies below or underneath the emergent and canopy layer. Here it is very humid, and much damper than the other two layers due to the shade of the canopy, so only around 5% of sunlight can break through. 

The understory layer consists of herbs, shrubs, herbaceous plants, ferns climbing plants and young trees, which can adapt well to find pockets of sunlight, fueling their growth towards the higher layers. The leaves of the plants here are large, to help them in the fight for sunlight, and the trunks of the plants are covered in mosses, lichen and fungi, which are attracted to the shade and humidity.

Forest Floor:
This layer is the final layer. Darker and the most humid of them all, with only about 2% of the sunlight reaching it. This layer consists of fallen leaves, twigs, fruits and seeds fallen from the layers above. These materials combined with the low sunlight and high humidity allow rapid decomposition aided by soil bacteria and fungi. The forest floor is not rich in nutrients, however, because of the amount of tree and plant roots cascading through. Because it is the easiest to access, this is the most well-studied layer of the rainforest. 

Animals in the Emergent Layer.

Harpy eagles, scarlet macaws, monkeys, squirrels, morpho butterflies.

Animals in the Canopy Layer.

Green aracari, red-eyed tree frogs, tamarin, sloths, howler monkeys, iguanas, orangutans, lizards

Due to it being hard to see with all the plants, animals in this layer use calls to communicate.

Animals in the Understory Layer.

Insects and butterflies, snakes, tamandua - this is where birds prey on insects and snakes get small mammals for food.

Animals on the Forest Floor.

This is where massive land animals live such as elephants, leopards, gorillas, tapirs, hippos, jaguars and tigers. Insects, such as leaf-cutter ants and amphibians like poison dart frogs are also very common. The insects live in massive super-colonies consisting of millions of members. 

Video Time!

360 Interactive view