Ecuador - Third Grade
Units Additional Resources Standards
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What is the most delicious thing to come from rainforests? Chocolate, of course! In four unique units children will explore chocolate, the food of the gods, and a native tree of the rainforests of Latin America. Students will learn about the Chachi of Ecuador, a small indigenous group who believe strongly in protecting the forest, and who are using cocoa farms to do it. But chocolate isn't the only interesting thing found in these wonderful forests. Students will learn about the wealth of biodiversity that thrives within the moist, green forests of a region of Ecuador known as the Chocó. |
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Units
Download all 3rd grade units [PDF ~222K]
Key Concept:In every environment plants and animals depend on each other for food and shelter, protection and community. The survival of different species depends on the health of ecological systems that may be near or far away. The complex relationships within one ecosystem can be hurt when one of the components is threatened or one of the species becomes extinct.
Essential Question:
What can’t one live without the other?
Download in PDF [PDF ~152K] View On Screen
Key Concept: Each species has different survival needs. The balance of each ecosystem is a delicate web of interdependence and every species of plant or animal is affected by changes in that balance. Knowing how we, as humans, are the same and/or different than other species informs us of our role in the larger ecosystem.
Essential Question: What do we need to live in the trees?
Download in PDF [PDF ~151K] View On Screen
Key Concept: Insects are essential elements of any ecosystem as they serve as pollinators for plants. Insects may be regarded as a nuisance to humans, but if they all disappeared every ecosystem would feel the impact of this loss.
Essential Question:
What if the forest could talk?
Download in PDF [PDF ~153K] View On Screen
Key Concept: Everything has a source. When we consume products from the shelves of supermarkets we are intricately connected to the ecosystem in which the natural resources originated and to the lives of those people who produced them.
Essential Question: Whose lives are we eating?
Download in PDF [PDF ~154K] View On Screen
Additional Resources
Don't forget to check out our Great Resources page for easy access to the many supplemental materials tailored to complement these units.
- Slideshow - See below for a slideshow and script about Ecuador that
includes background information about the animals, people and landscape of
this region. The slideshow can be downloaded for viewing in the classroom,
printed out and read as a story or viewed online with the students.
View On-Screen Download [PDF ~1.1M]
Download Script [PDF ~15K]
- Unit-Specific Story - The Rainforest Alliance has developed an original story for use with these units. The story is available to download and print or can be viewed on-screen.
- Bromeliad View on Screen Download [PDF ~149K]
- Ocelot View on Screen Download [PDF ~80K]
- Great Curassow View on Screen Download [PDF ~63K]
- Capuchin monkey View on Screen Download [PDF ~37K]
- Three-toed Sloth View on Screen Download [PDF ~33K]
- Rainforest Poster - A colorful two-page poster is available for you to use in explaining the layers of the rainforest, its products and the environmental threats facing many rainforests around the world.
Inside the Canopy - Structure and species of the rainforest
Download 8.5x14 [PDF ~2.3M]
Status Report - What is happening to the rainforest
Download 8.5x14 [PDF ~356K]
- Terrarium Instructions – Download directions for making a terrarium in your classroom.
- Rainforest Products - Click here for a summary of products found in our homes and supermarkets that either originated in tropical forests or are currently produced there.
- Teacher Summary/Chachi Community Profile – An overview of Chachi cocoa farmers in Ecuador with useful information to introduce you to the lesson topic.
Download [PDF ~17K]
- Conservation and Development - Check out the Adopt-A-Rainforest pages for more information about how the Rainforest Alliance's partner group in Ecuador, Conservation and Development, is helping the Chachi protect their precious ecosystems.
- Profiles in Sustainability - Click here for case studies on companies who work closely with the Rainforest Alliance to ensure that their practices protect wildlife, workers and communities.
- Certificate of Accomplishment - Print out colorful rainforest certificates for your students to commemorate their completion of these units.
Download [PDF ~594K]
- Great Resources - Check out this page for easy access to additional supplemental materials that complement these dynamic units.
Standards
Language Arts Writing
Standard 4 Level 2 Grade 3-5
2. 3. 4. Gathers and uses information for research purposes (encyclopedias, dictionaries, electronic media).
Uses multiple representations of information (maps, charts, diagrams, tables) to find information for research topics.
7. Uses strategies to compile information into written reports or summaries.
Reading
Standard 7 Level 2 Grade 3-5
Uses reading skills and strategies to understand a variety of informational texts.
5. Summarizes and paraphrases information in texts.
6. Uses prior knowledge and experience to understand and respond to new information.
Listening and Speaking
Standard 8 Level 2 Grade 3-5
Contributes to group discussions.
Asks questions in class.
Responds to questions and comments.
- Listens to classmates and adults.
7. Makes basic oral presentations to class.
10. Organizes ideas for oral presentations.
Reading
Standard 6 Level 2 Grade 3-5
Uses reading skills and strategies to understand and interpret a variety of literacy texts.
9. Makes connections between characters or simple events in a literary work and people or events in his or her own life.
Thinking and Reasoning
Standard 3 Level 2 Grade 3-5
4. Makes comparisons between countries in terms of relatively concrete characteristics (size, population, products).
Standard 1 Level 2 Grade 3-5
- Uses facts from books, articles and databases to support an argument.
7. Recognizes when a comparison is not fair because important characteristics are not the same.
Standard 5 Level 2 Grade 3-5
- Identifies issues and problems in the school or community that one might help solve.
Mathematics
Standard 1 Level 2 Grade 3-5
- Uses a variety of strategies to understand problem situations.
- Represents problems situations in a variety of forms.
Standard 3 Level 2 Grade 3-5
7. Solves real world problems involving number operations.
Standard 4 Level 2 Grade 3-5
- Understands the basic measures perimeter, area, volume circumference.
- Selects and uses appropriate tools for given measurement situations.
4. Understands relationships between measures.
- Uses specific strategies to estimate quantities and measurements
Standard 9 Level 2 Grade 3-5
2. Understands that mathematical ideas and concepts can be represented concretely, graphically, and symbolically.
Life Science
Standard 6 Level 2 Grade 3-5
- Knows the organization of simple food chains and food webs.
- Knows the transfer of energy.
- Knows that changes in the environment can have different effects on different organisms.
- Knows that all organisms (including humans) cause changes in their environments and these changes can be beneficial or detrimental.
Standard 1 Level 2 Grade 3-5
Understands atmospheric processes and the water cycle.
Standard 4 Level 2 Grade 3-5
5. Knows that the characteristics of an organism can be described in terms of a combination of traits; some traits are inherited and others result from interactions with the environment.
Standard 5 Level 2 Grade 3-5
- Knows that living organisms have distinct structures and body systems that serve specific functions in growth, survival and reproduction. (body structures for walking, flying, or swimming).
Standard 7 Level 2 Grade 3-5
3. Understand the concept of extinction and its importance in biological evolution.
- Knows ways in which living things can be classified.
Standard 9 Level 2 Grade 3-5
Understands the sources and properties of energy.
Standard 11 Level 2 Grade 3-5
- Knows that good scientific explanations are based on evidence (observations) and scientific knowledge.
- Knows that scientists make the results of their investigations public.
Standard 13 Level 2 Grade 3-5
- Knows that people of all ages, backgrounds and groups have made contributions to science and technology throughout history.
Standard 12 Level 2 Grade 3-5
- Plans and conducts simple investigations.
4. Uses appropriate tools and simple equipment.
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