In the forest, divide the class into five groups of 5-6 people.  Each group will study a different aspect of a forest ecosystem: the plants, animals, soil, the forest as part of a broader landscape and the forest and humans.  Gather a selection of booklets and reference texts to assist the learners with their study. Give each group a set of questions on which they need to report to the larger group after about an hour.  You can adapt the group sheets provided below to suit your class.  There is a suggestion for a creative activity for each group.  Make sure that you provide the group with the materials (such as plasticine) for these activities. 

GROUP 1 - THE PLANTS OF THE FOREST
Your group is to investigate the plants of the forest in terms of diversity and their importance or role. Using your senses as well as the resources given to you, investigate the following issues and prepare the report back to your fellow learners. 

• What is diversity and why is it important? Base your investigation of diversity around the plants of the forest.

• Do you notice anything about the structure of the forest plants: individually as well as combined? What role do forest plants play both within the forest and as part of the broader landscape?

• Use examples you have found to explain the following ecological concepts in detail. Describe them and explain how they work, what is important about each in the functioning of the forest ecosystem: Energy flow, photosynthesis, symbiosis, epiphytism, mutualism, commensalisms and adaptation.

• Identify the different layers in the forest:
  a) describe each layer, components, characteristics, height, etc.
  b) describe the adaptations of the plants at each layer in the forest ecosystem.
  c) outline the role of each layer in the forest ecosystem.

• Collect 6 different leaf shapes and identify the shapes.

• Find and identify as many different types of alien plants in this forest as you can. Outline the problems that these plants cause here and suggest long and short term solutions.

• Do forest plants compete? Explain your answer and provide an example.

• Outline the process of succession in the forest and try to find the different seral stages. Explain the condition of the forest margin and identify the pioneer species.

Creative Activities: a) Using crayons and paper do leaf rubbings to demonstrate the diversity of plants in this forest. b) Use ‘artists palettes’ (a collection of leaves, seeds, forest objects, stuck onto a blank sheet of paper or card) in describing at least one of the ecological concepts above. 

Succession: the process during which an ecosystem recovers from some kind of disturbance. After disturbance, the plant and animal communities in the ecosystem keep changing until the ecosystem becomes stable again.
Sere: All communities which appear during a specific period are collectively known as a SERE (or seral stage).
Examples of SERA : plants found on the forest margin, pioneer plants, invader plants, plants growing in open spaces in the canopy, etc. Seral stages keep replacing earlier stages until a climax community is reached. The climax community resists further change and a dynamic equilibrium is established.
Community: a collection of different species found in the same place at the same time.

GROUP 2 - THE FOREST ANIMALS
Your group will be looking at the animals of the forest and investigating the roles they play and how they are adapted to life in the forest. Using your senses as well as the resources given to you, investigate the following issues prepare the report back to your fellow learners.

• In order to survive in the forest, forest animals (mammals, arthropods, birds and reptiles) need to cope with the specific forest conditions. What are these conditions and how do the forest animals cope with them?

• What is the role or importance of forest animals in terms of the functioning and diversity of the forest?

• Explain in detail the following ecological concepts: population dynamics, niche, predation, parasitism and specialised adaptations the animals will need to enable them to survive here?

• Find evidence of animals living in the forest (spoor, droppings, scats, feathers, etc)

• Sketch a forest profile and show where animals live.

• Forests contain a number of different communities (riverine, margins, forest floor, different strata) which interact with each other in various ways. Describe, in detail, the processes occurring in any part of the forest community. Construct a food web and indicate which way the energy flows and why?

Creative Activity: Using plasticine: create your own animal that would be perfectly suited to life in the forest. Say which specific part of the forest it would live in, how it moves about, what it eats, what its enemies are and how it defends itself or escapes from its enemies. 

Community: a collection of different species found in the same place at the same time.

GROUP 3 - THE FOREST SOIL
Your group will be investigating the soil of the forest as well as its living components. Using your senses as well as the resources given to you, investigate the following issues and prepare the report back to your fellow learners.

• Firstly, describe the soil itself; is it sandy, clay, both? How much humus does the soil contain?

• Now search for creatures in the soil. Identify them and find out what role they play in the forest.

• Why does the forest never run out of nutrients in the soil for plants?

• Explain, in detail, the following concepts; decomposition, biogeocemical cycles and habitat.

• What abiotic factors affect this forest? How do they do this? 

• Take a sample of soil and leaf litter and conduct a topsoil analysis. Identify all the components of the soil. How does leaf litter affect the forest?

• Identify accurately the path taken by nutrients in this forest. Illustrate.

• Locate and identify 5 different agents of decomposition and describe how each functions. Mention features such as aerophytes and weathering.

Creative Activity: Collect 10 leaves in different stages of decomposition and stick them on a dry stick to show the process of decomposition. 

Nutrients: chemical compounds, essential for life, which are obtained from food i.e. carbohydtraes, proteins, lipids and proteins. The most common chemical elements found in nutrients are carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen.
Nutrient Cycling:the transformation of chemical elements from non-living inorganic form in the environment to living organic form in organisms and, via decomposition, back to non-living inorganic form, e.g. the OXYGEN  CYCLE, CARBON CYCLE and NITROGEN CYCLE.
Decomposition: the gradual breakdown of organic matter into simple inorganic form, brought about by physical and biological agents.
Decomposers: bacteria and fungi
Detrivores: animal consumers of dead matter

This is a useful introductory exercise to encourage observation and to familiarise children to a new environment.  Give pupils boundaries to work within the forest and allow them to work in pairs.  They should not collect any specimens, but record observations on a sheet (see below) using short descriptive sentences.  On their return go through the list choosing pupils at random to describe what they discovered.

Find something YOUNG .............................................
Find something OLD .............................................
Find something DEAD .............................................
Find something GROWING ..........................................
Find something DECAYING ..........................................
Find something JUST BEGINNING ..................................
Find something GROWING WITH DIFFICULTY ...................
Find something BRITTLE .............................................
Find something FALLING APART ....................................
Find something BURNT .............................................
Find something DRIED .............................................
Find something AFFECTED BY PEOPLE ...........................
Find something AFFECTED BY ANIMALS ..........................
Find A PLACE WHERE NOTHING WILL GROW ....................

Children can get their fingers dirty in this quick activity without even going to the forest.  Of course the activity would best be done in a forest or shortly following a visit to a forest.  Children need to think about forest creatures they can create using their fingerprints.  You will need an ink pad or marker pen for the fingerprinting and ordinary pens or pencils to complete the drawings.  See the examples below for some ideas.

Special Walks

From: Forest Fun, Share-Net, South Africa
Grade:  Primary school

Earthwalk
Leave the forest path and let the pupils take off their shoes.  Walk as silently as possible through the forest.  After the walk discuss experiences.  Do we make a lot of noise, compared with, for example, deer? Why? Why are our feet so soft when compared to other animals?

Blindfold trail
Mark a short trail through a section of forest using a length of rope.  Let the pupils take off their shoes and then blindfold them.  Set them off at intervals stressing that they must move as silently as possible using as many senses as they can to enable them to describe to you (or the class) both their sensory and emotional experiences at the end of the trail.

Nightwalk
Go for a walk in the forest at night with a small group of pupils.  Switch off your torches, sit down and listen to the night sounds.




Leaf and Bark Rubbings

From: Forest Fun, Share-Net, South Africa
Grade:  Primary school

Leaf Rubbings
This is a quick and easy way of recording the shape of leaves, their veins and other details in the forest.  Place the leaf, vein side uppermost, under a piece of white paper.  Working on a hard surface, rub a wax crayon on its side over the paper immediately above the leaf using even pressure.  The leaf impression will now appear.

You could take some leaves back to the classroom for rubbings.  Give each pupil two sheets of paper and let them choose leaves and different coloured crayons to do rubbings.  A branch should be drawn on one sheet of paper.  Children should cut out their leaves and stick them on to the branch (see picture below).  You could draw a large tree trunk on poster sheets and stick the branches onto this to create your own tree for inside the classroom.

Bark Rubbings
Many trees can be identified from the pattern and texture of their bark.  A useful way of studying and recording bark is to make rubbings using wax crayons.  Let the children work in pairs with one holding the paper firmly on the bark while the other rubs.