As part of our study of the HSIE unit Global Environments, students learnt about rainforests this week.
Below are several examples from our talented students who have done an amazing job writing descriptions about this type of environment. Enjoy!
The fern green leaves dripped with moisture, hot and humid, sticky and alive.
Ants the size of erasers march alongside decaying tangerine leaves… beetles and crickets beware!
The smell of rotting flesh stifles the scent of fresh rain, but in the shallows, sanctuary is found as the waterfall pounds the rocks below.
Anteaters, ocelots, jaguars and panthers crawl, pounce and trot. Eating ants and each other, silent and deadly.
A gigantic fleshy flower the size of a car tyre, rose red with alabaster spots, smelling like rotting flesh, attracting flies like a beacon from miles around.
Gigantic trees tower into the sky like giant green skyscrapers, hosting life, like their city counterparts. Vines hanging to and fro, tree to tree, caramel and tawny-coloured wood dotted with pickle-coloured moss and tan lichen.
Tarsiers hunt in darkness, gigantic eyes, never blinking , always watching. Snakes hunt for marmosets, while the eerie ‘tap, tap, tap’ of the aye – ayes search for wood grubs in complete darkness.
Dawn comes as tree frogs jump and dart away from predatory tarantulas. Bromeliads host life in tiny pools amongst the boughs of giants.
Toucans pluck fruit from the boughs that grow upon the trees, epiphytes leech nutrients from their gigantic hosts, while some merely grow upon pockets of collected earth, such as the magenta bromeliads forming tiny pools in-between their leaves, but to their inhabitants it is a gigantic lake, although still full of life.
Eagles soar above the tree tops, hunting their quarry with telescope like vision. Bats roam the skies at night – silhouettes across the inky black sky, dotted with millions upon millions of stars, but not for long – the age of man has come!
Written by Oliver
The Rainforest
The fresh, cool rain drizzled, revitalising the dark green forest, slowly trailing down the leaves, only to fall onto the trunk of the tree. It found its way to the roots of the magnificent redwood tree, where it would then be absorbed into the soft moss that carpeted the forest floor.
The usually small creek that puddled in the middle of the forest now cuts through like a cold, metallic knife. The cold, refreshing water eventually pounds over a forceful drop, ending up at a calm and tranquil lake, where all the native forest animals, such as leopards and jaguars drink, if the rainfall is good.
The dark green canopy of trees stood above the forest like silent protectors, ready to take the weight of anything nature had to throw at them, such as ferocious lightning, rain-storms, and extreme wind.
Written by Rory
The thunder rolled around the lush shamrock-coloured ferns that lived all around the rainforest.
The 350 year old beech trees sheltered a lot of the heavy downfall from the younger, more vulnerable shrubbery beneath.
The swift speeding rapids of the freshly made stream tumbled over the rocks adding to the amplified sound of the thunder as lightning flashed across the sky, striking trees alight, only to be extinguished by rain and the saturated mossy wood.
The animals scampered around the trees looking for some substantial shelter beneath the undergrowth. Even the jaguars stalked away from the usually irresistible smaller game running around helplessly to escape the extreme downpour.
This is the rainforest.
Written by Dan
