By Linda Scher and Nathan Katzin

Getting Started

Did you know that the rainforests along the equator are home to more than half of the world's plant and animal species? Use this fascinating fact as a fun introduction to your unit. First, share several informational texts about the rainforest with your students, such as Kristin Joy Pratt's A Walk Through the Rainforest (Dawn, 1992). Then encourage students to learn more about one rainforest species that calls the equator home. Children can research their species in the library or online and then write a short paragraph about it. Finally, invite students to dress up like their plant or animal and share their research with the class. They will learn what a special environment the equator is!

Rainforest Dioramas

Almost all rainforests, one of our planet's most unique and amazing habitats, exist on or near the equator. Have your students learn more about rainforests by bringing in articles from magazines such as Science World and National Geographic. Then invite them to create a diorama of an Amazon rainforest that includes the canopy, understory, and forest floor. First, divide the class into three groups. Give each group a box that is the same size and shape. Then assign each group a different layer of the rainforest. Encourage the groups to learn more about the layers by visiting www.smm.org/sln. (Search “strata.”) Have each group create a diorama of their layer, labeling the species found there. When all group dioramas are completed, stack them on top of each other to create a class model of a rainforest!

Make a Difference

Rainforests are home to more than half of all Earth's known plant and animal species. However, clear-cutting of forests, road building, and slash-and-burn farming are rapidly destroying them. To learn more about why tropical rainforests are important and the reasons for their disappearance, students can visit www.rainforestpreservation.org/educt.htm. Then have students write a letter or design a card to send to a lawmaker or the local newspaper giving their opinions on rainforest preservation. Remind students to explain why they are writing, back up their opinions with facts, draw conclusions, and describe what action they want the reader to take. For a list of rainforest agencies, check out the Rainforest Action Network (www.ran.org).

Rainy Math

 Weather forecasting at the equator is a snap-most days the outlook is the same: warm with a very good chance of rain. Students will learn more about the equatorial climate and practice their predicting and research skills with this activity. First, have teams of two students look up the average monthly precipitation in the capital city of an equatorial country. This information can be found online at www.weather.com. Then, based on these averages, encourage teams to predict how much precipitation will fall in one week. Students can check their predictions by recording the precipitation each day. At the end of the week students should add up their results and compare them to their original guesses. What accounts for the differences between their predictions and the amount of actual precipitation? As a class, graph all teams'results.

Never-Ending Summer

Explain to your students that at most places along the equator, the temperature and amount of sunlight are constant throughout the year. This means no seasons, hardly ever any snow, and no need for daylight savings time. To demonstrate this fascinating fact visually, have students place a rubber band around the middle of a basketball or soccer ball to make an “equator.” Then place small pieces of colored tape on the top and bottom of the ball to represent the North and South poles. Have one student support the ball by placing fingers at each of the designated poles. Darken the room and have another student shine a flashlight directly at the “equator.” Make sure the poles are pointing straight up. The flashlight should be held several feet away from the ball and at the same height as the rubber band. Students will notice that the light striking the ball is most intense or direct at the equator and is less intense and more indirect closer to the poles. Next ask the student holding the ball to first tilt the North Pole and then the South Pole slightly closer to the flashlight to show students the effects of the change in the angle of the Earth's axis relative to the sun as the Earth travels around the sun in the course of the year. Point out that throughout this cycle the areas near the equator receive the most intense light.

Countries of the Equator

The equator passes through 13 countries: Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil, Sao Tome & Principe, Gabon, Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Somalia, Maldives, Indonesia, and Kiribati. Challenge your students to create a display about these unique and varied cultures. First, have teams of two students draw the name of an equatorial country from a grab bag. Then, using the Countries of the Equator Reproducible, below, invite them to complete an illustrated brochure that tells about the country they have chosen. The brochure should include the country's population, official language, average rainfall, and a picture of the country's flag. When finished, fasten the brochures together in the order above. The result is a super sized display that takes the viewer on a journey along the equator step by step!

Equator Map Hunt

The equator anchors the latitude and longitude grid system that helps us find any place on a world map. Help students understand the function of this imaginary line using the Equator Map Hunt Reproducible, below, which challenges students to find several equatorial cities on a map. To extend, ask students whether each city is in the northern or southern hemisphere, and record their answers in a t-chart.

 
Linda Scher and Nathan Katzin are education writers based in Raleigh, NC. Linda Scher's most recent professional book is Candidates, Campaigns & Elections (Scholastic, 2004). Nathan Katzin's most recent professional book is Instant Social Studies Activities: The Gold Rush (Scholastic, 2002). This article was originally published in the April 2004 issue of Instructor.