Teacher's Guide for APPLESEEDS Amazon Adventures

1. Describe the wet season in the Amazon. Write a short essay telling how your life would be different if you lived in the Amazon.
2. How have the people had to adapt their buildings and transportation to accommodate the weather?
3. Make an Amazon chart listing Sights / Sounds / Smells. Visit the Amazon in your imagination and fill in as many things as you can on the chart.
4. Explain why the 'encantado' are so special. Make a beautiful illustration of this enchanted animal.
5. Create an imaginary magical creature that could live in the environment in your state. Include its name, habits, and appearance and tell why it is so special to your people. Be sure to include an illustration.

1. What kind of equipment did Joel Sartore take on his adventure?
2. Why is it so difficult to take good pictures in the rainforest?
3. What kind of strategies did Sartore use to get the photos he wanted?
4. Explain both the dangerous and the exciting aspects of Sartore's trip.

1. Henry Walter Bates followed his love of nature to the Amazon River and stayed there 11 years to study. Tell about at least 3 fascinating things he learned.
2. Explain mimicry and tell how it is significant in the animal world.
3. If you followed your heart to a special destination for exploring, where would you go? Write about what you would study and what kinds of things you would discover.

1. Name 2 types of protection that butterflies use against enemies.
2. What is so strange about the way that a butterfly tastes its food?
3. Describe and draw the butterfly's life stages.

1. What are explorers climbing the Andes Mountains hoping to discover?
2. Explain the debate surrounding the word 'source'. What do YOU think is the true source and why?

1. What does the word 'pororoca' mean and explain what it is.
2. Why are champion surfers eager to ride the pororoca? Would you like to give it a try? Why or why not?
3. What is the Brazilian Indian belief about the pororoca?
4. Explain how natives in the Amazon weave fabric from two sticks and some string.
5. What is special about the designs woven in the cloth?

1. Why did Richard Evans Schultes go to Colombia, South America, in 1941?
2. Why did Schultes need to understand the life of the Indians to achieve his goal?
3. How do the Indians make curare poisons?
4. Explain the new method Schultes invented for preserving plant specimens.
5. How did Schultes become interested in plants? How did his interest affect his life's work?
6. How did Schultes' health suffer on his adventure?
7. What is the danger of the Amazon Rainforest being destroyed? Why do you think it is being destroyed?

1. How do you think the author of this article is feeling as she first goes ashore Shell Beach?
2. Why have the sea turtle eggs at Shell Beach been in danger?
3. Explain how James works to save the sea turtles.
4. How do the mother sea turtles lay their eggs?
5. Why do you think the sea turtle weeps after laying the eggs?
6. Based on this article, what feelings do you think the author has about the plight of the sea turtles?

1. In the Amazon River Basin, the _________________________ lasts half the year.



2. In Amazon villages, the girls play with ___________________________ , just like girls in America play with dolls.



3. The word ___________________ means enchanted.



4. Encantado can grow more than 6 feet long and may weigh _________ pounds.



5. The people in the Amazon believe that the pink dolphins have _____________ power.



6. ________________ is in Bolivia, a country along the western border of the Amazon rainforest.



7. One of Joel Sartore's macaw photos made the cover of ____________________________.



8. Bates stayed in Brazil for ________________ years to study the wilderness.



9. __________________ use their giant bills to gather fruit growing in hard to reach places.



10. To _____________ means to imitate.



11. ____________________ is the Latin name for butterflies. It means 'scaly wings'.



12. Butterflies have furry bodies and hairy pads on their _______ feet.



13. Some butterflies live for just a few days, while others live as long as _______ months.



14. The water from the Andes Mountains flows into the ___________________ Ocean.



15. Ocean tides smashing up the Amazon cause a wave _____________ high to roar upstream.



16. Designs on fabric often tell a story with _______________.



17. The very first plant collection that Richard Evans Schultes made was of a tiny ____________ pressed between the pages of his passport.



18. The study of how primitive peoples use plants is called ________________________.



19. In the language of the Kofan Indians, medicine and ________________ are the same word.



20. When sea turtles lay their eggs on Shell Beach, ___________________ try to steal the eggs and sell them for profit.



21. Sea turtles, which weigh about 2,000 pounds, use their __________________ to pull their bodies up onto the sand.



22. Even though sea turtles have brains the size of a ________________, they seem to weep in sorrow after laying their eggs.

1. What continent does this map show?
2. Name the 3 bodies of water that surround South America.
3. On what ocean is the coast of Brazil?
4. What symbol does the key show as representing possible sources of the Amazon?
5. What country shows many mountains?
6. Name the country that is west of Argentina.
7. What country's coast is on the Caribbean Sea?
8. Which is the most eastern country in South America?
9. Name a country that borders Venezuela.
10. You would swim in the Pacific Ocean if you lived in what country?

• Have the students decorate the classroom in a Rainforest theme. Include the ceiling!
• Have the class make up their own tale about the Pororoca.
• Use the sea turtle article to launch a study of animals in danger of extinction due to humans. Assign research papers based on this topic.
• Have the children form groups to debate the true source of the Amazon River.
• Have the students create a fictitious animal that would be suitable for life in the rainforest. Have them create a written profile and illustration.

Answer Key:

Comprehension: Short Answer

1. wet season
2. baby crocodiles
3. encantado
4. 400 pounds
5. magical
6. Madidi
7. National Geographic Magazine
8. 11
9. Toucans
10. mimic
11. Lepidoptera
12. six
13. 18
14. Atlantic
15. 15 feet
16. symbols
17. orchid
18. ethnobotany
19. poison
20. poachers
21. flippers
22. walnut

Geography: Mapping Skills

1. South America
2. Atlantic, Pacific, Caribbean
3. Atlantic
4. red flag
5. several correct answers
6. Chile
7. several correct answers
8. Brazil
9. several correct answers
10. several correct answers

Home

Back

Print

Updated: 11/21/09 10:27 am
Log In