Georgia Performance Standard

S4L1. Students will describe the roles of organisms and the flow of energy within an ecosystem.
a. Identify the roles of producers, consumers, and decomposers in a community.
b. Demonstrate the flow of energy through a food web/chain beginning with sunlight and including producers, consumers, and decomposers.
c. Predict how changes in the environment would affect a community (ecosystem) of organisms.
d. Predict effects on a population if some of the plants or animals in the community are scarce or if there are too many.

The Great Kapok Tree

The author of The Great Kapok Tree wrote the following letter to you:

Dear Readers,

I wrote The Great Kapok Tree to let the world know what happens to the rain forest creatures and to the entire planet when rain forests are destroyed.
I hope that after reading this book you will help save the rain forests. The Great Kapok Tree is about the Amazon Rain forest- a tropical rain forest- but we have a temperate rain forest in the Pacific northwest of the United States that we must protect, too.
Please care for Mother Earth. Together we can make a difference!

Lynne Cherry

After having the story read to you, think about how the story made you feel. What would you do if you were the young man in the rainforest? Post your response as a comment to this blog post.

Inhabitants of the Amazon Rainforest

For your research project PhotoStory, please pick one of the following creatures. Post your pick as a comment.



Emerald tree boa

Tree frog

Three-toed sloth

Urania butterfly

Tree porcupine

Tapir

Giant anteater

Vindula arsinoe butterfly

Hoatzin

Amazonian katydid

Poison arrow frog

Chesnut-capped puffbird

Parakeet

Blue morpho butterfly

Ocelot

Hamadryas arinome butterfly

Red-legged honey creeper

Papilio androgeus butterfly

Violet-tailed sylph

Kinkajou

Siproeta stelenes butterfly

Passion-flower butterfly

Iguana

Wooly monkey

Moustached tamarin

Silky anteater

Boa constrictor

Tamandua (anteater)

Anteo menippe butterfly

Jaguar

Squirrel monkey

Parrot

Red-necked tanager

Scamander

Coati

Brazilian tree frog

Toucan

Scarlet macaw

Research Questions

In the book, The Great Kapok Tree, the author mentions many different creatures that live in the Amazon rainforest. Pick one of the creatures (listed in another post) and use NetTrekker to find information about that animal or insect. You will be incorporating this information into a PhotoStory. You will need to find out some facts about the creature:

1. What is this creature (mammal, insect, amphibian, reptile)
2. Is this creature a producer, consumer, or decomposer?
3. Where in the rainforest does this animal live? (understory, canopy, emergent)
4. What does this creature eat?
5. What eats this creature?
6. Where does this animal fit in the food chain? What would happen to the food chain if this creature no longer existed?

You will also need several pictures for the PhotoStory. (At least five.) They can be of this creature, its young, the foods it eats, their habitat, or their predators.

You will also draw a picture of the food chain your creature is a part of. You will scan this and include it in your PhotoStory. You can also use PowerPoint to create the food chain. Save it as a jpg for inclusion in the PhotoStory.

Food Chain Example