Teachers meet at the beginning of each term for planning sessions and cooperative teaching of integrated units.Blooms Units have been developed for each stage of the learning process and teaching and learning activities planned after consideration and discussion of staged outcomes.Information Literacy.
Stage 3 H.S.I.E. Rainforests
The Daintree is a tropical rainforest in the north of Queensland. It has 3.5 mm of rain per annum and is 260 million years old.
The Daintree rainforest is home to 30% of marsupials, 60% of bats, 30% of frogs, 23% of reptiles and 62% of all butterflies in Australia.
The layers of the forest are (from top to bottom) the top layer where emergent trees grow up to 70 metres. The leaves on these trees are very small , the canopy-this is the thickest layer of the rainforest where trees grow up to 50 metres . Because it is so thick it blocks the sun from the rest of the layers. The understorey is the next layer down form the canopy where trees and ferns grow up to 15 metres.The forest floor is the darkest layer of the forest being 70 metres from the top and 50 metres below the canopy.
The Aborigines are believed to have
lived in the rainforest for 5 000
-40 00o years. The name of
their tribe is the Ngadjonjii. They still cook their food on hot
coals and use traditional methods of hunting.
In the Daintree there used to be logging, farming and mining. Now there ismainly tourism and farming and no more logging or mining.
The plants and trees in the rainforest include the cottonwood tree, the mangrove plant, the monkey puzzle nut, the matchbox vine, the palm mangrove, the epiphytes and the figtree. Some of the animals are the ringtail possum, the glider, the echidns, the platypus, the cassowary and the bower bird.
The Daintree Rainforest has been
place on the World Heritage listing. With improved management and no more
land clearing, with over 8 500 species of plants and trees it is a perfect
example for our future generations to enjoy.
Alexander 5/6S