Extreme Environments

Gr 6 Up—The film takes viewers across the globe to examine the health of forests, deforestation, preservation programs, and people of the forests. The male narrator begins the program in the Amazon River basin and with the people who live along the river who have instituted education programs to teach their children about the forests and their importance. Then it is on to Africa. In the Ivory Coast, park rangers educate people and protect wildlife in an area with a high demand for bush meat. Rain forest preservation is a topic of concern in Kenya. Illegal mining in park areas, ivory poaching, and protecting the mountain gorillas challenge park rangers in the Congo. Forests along the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Cambodia, heavily bombed during war in the 1970s, are recovering and a rich variety of animal life can be found. The program ends in the Atlantic forest of Brazil where habitat protection is needed to preserve the tamarin. There is neither a summation nor a conclusion to the program. This production would best be utilized as part of a geography or environmental studies lesson. Teachers will have to provide students with a map to locate the countries, an introduction to vocabulary, and background information on the conservation organizations mentioned throughout the program.—Patricia Ann Owens, Illinois Eastern Community College, Mt. Carmel