SCHOOLS LEARNING RESOURCE Activities for 11- to 14-year-olds

Harvest in the rainforest classroom activities Curriculum links to RE, Geography, Citizenship. These classroom activities accompany the Harvest in the rainforest assembly, which is available to download from christianaid.org.uk/learn These resources have been developed to help your school celebrate Harvest and to reflect on the work that Christian Aid partners are doing to protect the Amazon rainforest and support the people who live there.

WARM-UP ACTIVITY Split the class into two groups: city and rainforest. Ask the ‘city’ group to think of words they associate with cities and ask the ‘rainforest’ group to think of words that they associate with rainforests. Questions: • Where do their ideas about these places come from? • How accurate do they think they are? • Are there any words that the two places have in common? If not, can they think of any?

Activity 1: Exploring the Amazon rainforest (Geography) Share the Amazon rainforest factsheet with pupils and ask them to write an account, in their own words, about the importance of the Amazon rainforest.

Activity 2: Understanding the quilombolas (Geography) Share the Profile of a people worksheet with students and ask them to answer the following questions about the quilombolas: • H  ow might the history of the quilombolas shape their relationship with the forest? • What are the main threats to the quilombolas?

• W  hat are the main threats to the forest? • In what ways are the quilombolas helping to protect the forest and why is this important? • How are they being supported by Christian Aid’s partner the Pro-Indigenous Commission of São Paulo (CPI)?

Activity 3: Faith perspectives on the natural world (RE) Share the worksheet on Faith perspectives on the natural world. Ask students to identify any similarities and differences between the faith perpectives listed and to answer these questions: • In what ways are these various outlooks relevant to the situation in the Amazon rainforest? (Share the

Amazon rainforest factsheet with students.) • In what ways does the story of the quilombolas relate to a Christian perspective on Harvest? (Share the Profile of a people worksheet with students.) • Why might Christian Aid think that it is important to work with the quilombolas?

Activity 4: The Brazil nut tree (Citizenship) Share the Brazil nut tree worksheet with students, which features the template of a Brazil nut tree. You could use this sheet in a number of ways to help students to reflect on what they have learnt or think through their own perspectives on the natural world.

For example: students could write the problems they identified as threats to the Amazon rainforest/ the natural world at the base of the tree, write the things that are being done to protect the forest along the trunk, and write their hopes for the future in area around the leaves.

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SCHOOLS LEARNING RESOURCE Activities for 11- to 14-year-olds

A quarter of the world’s known land species live in the Amazon, including many rare and important creatures such as toucans, pink river dolphins and jaguars.

Christian Aid/Tabitha Ross

SECONDARY WORKSHEET Amazon rainforest factsheet

60 per cent of the entire Amazon rainforest lies in Brazil, covering 61.9 per cent of the country.

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The destruction of forests (worldwide, not just the Amazon) is responsible for up to a fifth of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions (the ones that cause climate change). This is more than every plane, car, truck, ship and train on the planet combined.

Brazil has more uncontacted tribes (people who have no contact with the globalised world) than any other country in the world. FUNAI, the Brazilian governmental agency for Indian protection, estimates that there are up to 70 uncontacted tribes living in the depths of the Amazon.

Before 1970 the Amazon was only one per cent deforested. Since then, 18.2 per cent of the forest has been destroyed – an area three times bigger than the UK.

773 Brazil is home to 773 threatened species, many of which live in the rainforest.

SCHOOLS LEARNING RESOURCE Activities for 11- to 14-year-olds

SECONDARY WORKSHEET Profile of a people: the quilombolas The quilombolas are the descendants of escaped slaves who fled Brazil’s plantations long ago and sought safety in the most remote areas of the Amazon rainforest. Hundreds of years ago, the escaped slaves founded communities called quilombos and learned the ways of the rainforest from the indigenous people living there.

Most quilombolas have a deep respect for their forest home and a strong desire to protect it from the many threats it faces from mining, fishing and deforestation. Domingos Printes, a quilombola leader, explains the special relationship that his community has with the forest: ‘The land holds great significance for us. Its meaning is so big that we call the land “mother”. We have an old song and the music says “the land is our mother and we have to take care of her”.’

Christian Aid/Tabitha Ross

There are between 3,000–5,000 quilombola communities, although no-one is sure how many people this represents because a census has never been taken.

Domingos Printes

But life in the rainforest is not always easy: one in 10 quilombola children is malnourished, and only a third of quilombolas have access to clean drinking water. The lure of city life draws some younger people away from their communities. In theory, quilombolas are allowed to apply for rights to their land, but in practice this is difficult: only about six per cent of quilombola communities hold the rights to their lands. Domingos explains why land rights are particularly important in light of their history: ‘First the slaves suffered because they were deprived of everything they had and were taken to a country that was not theirs. The slaves did not possess their own hands, let alone a house or land. So we decided that we had to defend the right of the quilombolas to have their own land.’

Christian Aid partner the Pro-Indigenous Commission of São Paulo (CPI) is helping the quilombolas to exercise their rights and protect their lands. It is providing legal advice to help them to defend their home against the many companies who want to profit from the rainforest by logging, mining and fishing. CPI is also helping the quilombolas to make a profit from the Brazil nuts that they harvest in the forest, and it is working with young people to help them develop opportunities to thrive in the forest and stay with their community, rather than leaving for the city.

Christian Aid/Tabitha Ross

Gaining land rights is also an extremely important step in protecting the rainforest from deforestation: in territories that are under the control of quilombola or indigenous communities, just one per cent of forest cover has been lost, compared with 20 per cent in the rest of the Amazon.

Quilombolas help to protect the forest

SCHOOLS LEARNING RESOURCE Activities for 11- to 14-year-olds

Christian Aid/Tabitha Ross

SECONDARY WORKSHEET Faith perspectives on the natural world

These quotations are a brief introduction to how the six major faiths in the UK think about the natural world. ‘He who hates no creature is dear to me.’

‘God beholds his creation and rejoices.’

Bhagavad Gita, Hindu

Japji, Sikh

‘God says: “Look at my works, how beautiful they are! Do not corrupt and destroy my universe; for if you destroy it, no-one will repair it”.’ Midrash Rabbah, Kohelet 7, Jewish

‘To Him belongs what is in the heavens and on the earth, and all between them, and all beneath the soil.’ The Quran, Surah 20:6, Muslim

‘Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture? Must you also trample the rest of your pasture with your feet? Is it not enough for you to drink clear water? Must you also muddy the rest with your feet?’

‘We are the generation with awareness of a great danger. We are the ones with the responsibility and the ability to take action before it is too late.’ H.H. The Dalai Lama, Buddhist

Ezekiel 34:18, the Bible, Christian

Harvest in the Christian faith Harvest is the time when Christians thank God for the food that has been harvested and that will feed them through the year. The food symbolises God’s care and protection for people. It is also a time to remember those who do not have enough food and

to give to those in need. Christians believe that God made them stewards of creation, and that they should look after the world and everything in it, so that it can continue to provide for the needs of all living things.

SCHOOLS LEARNING RESOURCE Activities for 11- to 14-year-olds

SECONDARY WORKSHEET THE Brazil nut tree Brazil nut trees can grow up to 50 metres high and live for 1,000 years.

Brazil nut trees only grow wild in the rainforest: they cannot be farmed because they rely on the delicate ecosystem of the rainforest to survive.

A rare bee called the orchid bee pollinates the flowers on the Brazil nut tree, and a small animal called an agouti buries the tree’s seeds (Brazil nuts).

Brazil nut trees are protected by Brazilian law. It is illegal to cut them down, so timber companies leave them behind when they log the surrounding trees.

However, since Brazil nut trees depend on the forest ecosystem to survive, the trees that the loggers leave die within a few years anyway.