Amazon Rainforest: People & Threats (Grades 6-9)
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The Amazon Rainforest: People & Threats – A Call to Protect Our Planet! 🌿🐍
Who calls the Amazon Rainforest home? How do indigenous tribes survive in this vast jungle, using its natural resources for food, shelter, and medicine? And what dangers are putting their way of life—and the entire rainforest—at risk? Now, your upper elementary students can take an eye-opening virtual field trip into the heart of the largest rainforest on Earth to explore the people, biodiversity, and growing threats to this fragile ecosystem!
📽️ “The Amazon Rainforest: People & Threats” is a visually stunning, curriculum-aligned educational video that transports students deep into the rainforest, where they’ll meet indigenous communities, learn about their traditions, and uncover the serious challenges of deforestation, illegal mining, and habitat destruction. This immersive experience will open students’ eyes to the importance of conservation and the role they can play in protecting our planet’s most valuable ecosystem.
💡 What Your Students Will Learn:
✅ How indigenous tribes have lived in the Amazon for thousands of years, using hunting, fishing, and farming to survive
✅ The importance of traditional knowledge—how rainforest people understand which plants heal, which animals are dangerous, and how to live in harmony with nature
✅ The threats of deforestation, mining, and logging, and how these activities are pushing animals and people out of their homes
✅ Why the Amazon is called “the lungs of the planet”, producing up to 10% of the world’s oxygen
✅ The shocking loss of 35 rainforest species per day due to habitat destruction
✅ How medicines, foods, and products we use every day—like chocolate, vanilla, and rubber—come from the rainforest
✅ What students can do to help, from choosing Fair Trade products to supporting sustainable conservation efforts
🌟 Why Teachers Love This Video:
🕒 No-Prep, Standards-Aligned Content – A ready-to-use, engaging lesson!
🎥 Visually Captivating & Thought-Provoking – Keeps students excited and curious.
🎯 Brings Geography, Science & Conservation to Life – Helps students understand real-world issues and inspire action.
📚 Perfect for Social Studies, Environmental Science & Global Awareness Lessons – Encourages critical thinking and discussion.
💡 Take Your Students on a Powerful Amazon Rainforest Expedition!
Give your students a front-row seat to the wonders and challenges of the Amazon Rainforest—without ever leaving the classroom! Subscribe today and inspire the next generation of environmental protectors! 🚀
Video length: 14:30 minutes.
Learning Resources with this Video*
Quiz – PDF
Quiz – Online
A Day in the Amazon Rainforest Writing Prompt
Rainforest Reflection – Writing Prompt
Rainforest Threats Vocabulary Worksheet
Cultivating Change: The Human Impact on Rainforests
Draw a Scene
Universal Resources
National Standards
*Links are active on Full Video page.
Classroom Ideas
Amazon Rainforest: People & Threats
Homes Around the World
Compare/contrast houses and other structures from various countries, e.g. rainforest inhabitants’ homes vs. bohios in Cuba.
Explore Vocabulary
Identify key vocabulary terms while previewing each video. Prompt students to find the meaning of each word as they watch the video. Example: What does the word deforestation mean? Think about the meaning of each word as you watch the video about the Amazon Rainforest.
Save the Rainforest Campaign
Students can create a mock campaign to conserve the Amazon Rainforest and its important resources. This could include a campaign poster design, slideshow, persuasive speech presentation, etc.
Human Impact
Have students research how the Amazon Rainforest is changing due to human activity and create a poster to illustrate a solution to a problem there (e.g. deforestation destroys species habitats).
Ecotourism Conversation
Discuss ecotourism with students and talk about the pros and cons of it in regards to the Amazon Rainforest.
Compare and Contrast Resources
Compare and contrast renewable resources in the Amazon Rainforest and the United States.
Rainforest Food
Bring food that can be found in the Amazon Rainforest (bananas, tea, mango, pineapple, avocados, yams, etc.) and let students sample them. Discuss how these products can impact those that live in the Amazon Rainforest as well as those that purchase from them.
Diorama
Create a diorama of the Rainforest.
Rainforest Game
Ask students to make up a board game that demonstrates life in the rainforest. If the students work in groups, they can describe/demonstrate their game in front of the rest of the class.
Webquest
Create a webquest on the indigenous people of the Amazon and the threats facing them. Students will work in pairs or small groups to complete the webquest, and then present their results.
Trees in the Amazon and at Home
On the basis of what students learn about the amazingly old and tall trees of the Amazon, ask them to think of any trees around where they live or near their school. Ask them to think about the ways in which that tree is important in the ecosystem, for example – as a means of building dugout canoes for transportation.
Transportation Around the World
Compare/contrast various modes of transportation in different countries (dugout canoes in the Rainforest vs. Japanese subways vs. classic cars in Cuba)
Conservation
Prompt students to write a report about how people can conserve natural resources and eliminate threats to endangered species and populations.
Art and Social Studies
Draw a scene from the video you just watched.
Writing Topic
Write a paper on how the indigenous people rely on the Amazon Rainforest and the natural resources it provides.
Rainforest Journal
Have students write a diary or a story about traveling the Amazon Rainforest and discuss what they “saw” and experienced during their trip.
Ecotourism Debate
Create 2 debate teams – one team in favour of ecotourism, the other against. Students can use the video as part of their evidence in a debate, e.g. for/against ecotourism.
Biome Comparison
Compare the rainforest and another habitat.
Compare differences and similarities.
Compare the characteristics of each ecosystem.
Write a 3 paragraph paper discussing the similarities and differences of the two.
Writing
What was your favorite part of the video? What do you think is the best thing about living in the Amazon Rainforest? Why?
The Amazon Rainforest in Action
In groups, students could come up with and put on plays in which they play an indigenous child living in the Amazon Rainforest. At the beginning of the play, students will individually introduce themselves as their chosen character, giving the class information on life in the rainforest.
A Day in the Amazon Rainforest
Students write a story about an imaginary day in the Amazon, talking about the weather, plants, animals, and humans they might encounter. Reflect on how the rainforest is different from the ecosystem in which you live and go to school.
Classroom Ideas for ALL Videos
Here are dozens and dozens of ideas that you can use in your classroom along with our videos!
Topics Covered In This Video
Daily activities in the Amazon Rainforest
Hunting, fishing & crops
Costumes & clothing
Housing & transportation
Medicine, food & products in the rainforest
Threats
Deforestation & damage
Extinction
Solutions
What you can do
Ecotourism
Videos in this Series
Amazon Rainforest (Grades 5-9)
Amazon Rainforest (Grades 2-6)
Amazon Rainforest: People & Threats (Grades 2-6)
La Selva Amazonica (Spanish)
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