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Amazon Rain Forest School Project

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Follow the guidelines below to participate in OneWorld Classrooms' Amazon Rain Forest School Project.

(Also: See our Tips for a Great Adventure and Collaboration Tools and Resources for Teachers in the right hand column.)

PROGRAM TIMETABLE

The Amazon Rain Forest School (ARFS) Project will take place between February 21st and April 15th, 2011. Teachers who are not completing their Amazon study during the program dates may save program content for future use.

ONEWORLD CLASSROOMS' TRAVELING TEAM OF EDUCATORS

The program coincides with OneWorld Classrooms staff and volunteers traveling to visit Amazon Rain Forest schools in March, 2011.The traveling team of educators includes: OneWorld Classrooms Director, resident poet and educator, Paul Hurteau (who lived and taught in the Ecuadorian Amazon for one year and has since traveled to the region to visit schools ten times); Lilia Cai-Hurteau (who also lived and taught in the Amazon Rain Forest) and 10 other teachers, volunteers and students. Paul will lead volunteers on trips to nearby Amazon schools around Puyo and Tena, Ecuador. Nearby Peace Corps and WorldTeach volunteers stationed at Amazon communities will coordinate with Paul to involve their schools.

RECEIVING PROJECT EMAILS

OneWorld Classrooms staff will send daily Emails (see 'Forest Floor Participation below) to participating teachers throughout the course of the ARFS Project. These Emails will contain content, links and attachments that allow project participation. Most of Emails will be sent through Constant Contact; and some will be sent directly from OneWorld Classrooms. Teachers should make sure their Email programs do not filter these Emails. Some Emails will contain attachments of up to 10MB. Teachers should set (or have their technology department set) their Email programs to receive attachments of up to 10MB.

IMPORTANT: If you do not receive daily Emails during the program period or if you have trouble downloading any attachments, please send an Email to paul@oneworldclassrooms.org.

FOREST FLOOR PARTICIPATION

All participating teachers will gain password-protected access to the following online resources:

1. OneWorld Classrooms' Field Trip to the Amazon, a four-part 100+ slide field trip to Limoncocha, Ecuador, a small village along the Napo River in the Amazon Rain Forest. Through the slides, Amazon children lead your students on a tour around their school, their village and the forest that surrounds their community. Along the way, they'll share many aspects of their daily lives and their amazing, but quickly changing culture. The tour includes poetry written by OneWorld Classrooms project leader Paul Hurteau, songs by children from Limoncocha, and photos of rain forest plants and animals. OneWorld Classrooms will post the slide show on a password-protected section of its Web site and announce the URL to participants via Email before the program period.

2. Amazon Travel & Learn Online Content - OneWorld Classrooms' free online content contains an Amazon section which includes The Amazon River Elementary School Web Site, the Amazon Classroom Package for teachers, Baños: Where the Rain Forest Begins (with Spanish and English content), Amazon student artwork, and more. Available at http://www.oneworldclassrooms.org/travel/latinamerica/index.html.

3. Videos and PowerPoints contributed by Amazon schools during previous years' projects, featuring Amazon students.

All participating teachers will also receive daily* Emails from February 21st through April 15th, 2011 with electronic curriculum-based content that virtually takes their students on the Amazon journey with our team of educators and reinforces their class's study of the Amazon Rain Forest. (*While we are traveling in the Amazon, it may not be possible for us to send Emails on some days.) Teachers may elect to use whichever content best matches their grade level, curriculum and timetable. Registered teachers who are not completing their Amazon study during the program dates may save the content for future use.

The Emails will include:

1. Google Earth Tours - 10 Google Earth tours that trace our journey to the Amazon and explore your curriculum, with photos, cultural information and activity suggestions. Includes Google Earth tips that guide teachers to get the most out of their Google Earth travels.

IMPORTANT: In order to view the Google Earth tours, classes must have the latest version of Google Earth and a high-speed Internet connection. Teachers may download a free version of the latest Google Earth at http://earth.google.com. We highly recommend that teachers take advantage of this free and extraordinary classroom tool!

2. E-Travel Logs - 10 E-travel logs, written by OneWorld Classrooms team leader Paul Hurteau, chronicling the team's current and past trips to visit schools in the Amazon Rain Forest, with true and traditional stories, cultural and scientific information, rain forest math problems, photos and more.

3. RARE Emails - 12 Rainforest Activity & Resource Emails for teachers, with related classroom activity suggestions, lesson ideas, reading materials, links to valuable online resources and more.

UNDERSTORY LEVEL PARTICIPATION

Teachers who have registered for the Understory level will receive all of the Forest Floor content, plus be able to participate in:

1. An Email Q & A Exchange with Amazon Students

Send project leader Paul Hurteau one Email with questions your students would like to ask their peers in the Amazon to paul@oneworldclassrooms.org before March 5th, 2011. Classes may send 3 questions each, teams of classes may send 6 questions each and schools may send 10 questions each.
Paul and OneWorld Classrooms volunteers will ask your students' questions to Amazon students and send their replies back to you via Email before April 15th, 2011. The reply Emails will contain a compilation of replies to questions submitted by a variety of US schools.
In some cases, OneWorld Classrooms may also mail you 3-10 questions that students in the Amazon would like to ask your students (at any point during the program). Send one Email with your students' replies within one week of receiving the questions to paul@oneworldclassrooms.org. Paul and OneWorld Classrooms volunteers will share your students' replies with their Amazon peers.
PLEASE NOTE: Only teachers should submit Emails. OneWorld Classrooms will not reply to student Emails.

2. The Amazin' Amazon Mystery Animal Poetry Contest

Participating teachers will receive eight Emails, each featuring a guess-who animal poem written by project leader Paul Hurteau. Paul will write new poems for this year's program. (Poems from past years will also be available on the project Web site.) Paul's goal: to 'stump' your students in a fun and friendly guessing contest (as they learn about and enjoy poetry). The poems will get progressively more challenging until the final 'ultimate stumper.'

In the Emails, Paul will also share poetry writing strategies that he uses in his poems and will provide teachers with poetry writing activity ideas, encouraging students to write their own guess-who Amazon animal poems.

WIN AMAZON CRAFTS FOR YOUR CLASSROOM: Teachers may submit their students' guess for each animal to paul@oneworldclassrooms.org within one week of the send date of the original Email. The participating class that guesses the most correct animals by the end of the project will be awarded a set of authentic Amazon Rain Forest crafts* (see below). If there is a tie, one of the tied classes will be chosen randomly. Guesses received after one week from the send date of the original Email will not be counted.

Follow-up Emails will contain answers, animal photos and animal facts. IMPORTANT: Since follow-up Emails will contain the answers, teachers must submit their students' guesses within one week of the send date of the original Email in order for correct responses to be counted.

PLEASE NOTE: Only teachers should submit Emails. OneWorld Classrooms will not reply to student Emails.

*Amazon Crafts - Contest winners will receive a set of 6 authentic Amazon Rain Forest crafts which will include a combination of the following items: balsa wood carvings, seed necklaces, fiber baskets/bags, tagua carvings and/or balsa drums. The crafts will be mailed one week after the completion of the project (in late April), via regular mail.

CANOPY LEVEL PARTICIPATION

Teachers who have registered for the Canopy level will receive all of the Forest Floor and Understory content and benefits, plus be able to participate in:

1. An Art Exchange with Amazon Students

Send artwork created by your students and reflecting their daily lives and/or culture to OneWorld Classrooms, PO Box 534, N. Andover MA 01845 USA before March 1st, 2011. Classes may send 5-10 pieces, teams may send up to 10-20 pieces and schools may send up to 20-30 pieces. The OneWorld Classrooms project team will deliver your artwork to participating Amazon schools when we visit Ecuador in March.
OneWorld Classrooms will post 100-200 digital images of artwork created by students in the Amazon during our visits to schools in March, 2011. Participating schools will gain password-protected access to the images and permission to print them for classroom use.
OneWorld Classrooms will also mail physical artwork from the Amazon to classes, teams or schools that have submitted their students' artwork before March 1st, 2011. We will mail 3-5 pieces of artwork to participating classes, 5-10 pieces to teams and 10-20 pieces to schools after April 5th. (The Amazon schools are much smaller than US schools, so the numbers will depend on how many US and Amazon schools participate.)
The artwork you will receive will match your grade level(s) as closely as possible and will reflect the student artists' lives and culture,
Students may use any artistic media (paints, pastels, crayons, etc.) and submit artwork on standard (A4) or legal (A3) or in-between sized paper. Please avoid repetition of subjects (houses, flags, etc.).
Attach a student information label with a paperclip to each piece of artwork (do not glue labels to back of art). The label should list the student's name, age/grade, school, town/city, country, subject/description of the drawing/painting and any comments the student would like to add about his/her artwork or him/herself. Use these labels or your own: HTML -- English | Spanish;
Microsoft Word -- English | Spanish.
If possible, attach a photo of each student artist to each corresponding piece of artwork with a paperclip. (Students in the Amazon will enjoy 'seeing' their peers this way and will value the photo as much as the art.)
As soon as your artwork is in the mail, send an Email to paul@oneworldclassrooms.org to let us know you have sent the artwork.
Send any questions or concerns to paul@oneworldclassrooms.org.

2. Curriculum-based Digital Video Sharing Featuring Amazon Students

As OneWorld Classrooms staff and volunteers visit schools in the Amazon, we will record and send video clips that feature Amazon students sharing cultural information and performing traditional music. OneWorld Classrooms will post the files for download on a password-protected section of the OneWorld Classrooms Web site and announce the URL's via Email in early April. We welcome you to Email us with video theme suggestions that match your curriculum. Send your suggestions to paul@oneworldclassrooms.org. We will also post archived clips from our previous years' visits to the Amazon.

We will also be able to share your videos at some Amazon schools (not all of the ones we work with have the means). If you would like to submit one or more videos, please follow the guidelines below:

a) Create one or more digital videos featuring your students, each between 3 and 15 minutes long.

For music video exchanges, record your students singing, dancing, playing musical instruments or performing.

For non-music exchanges, the video(s) may introduce your students; share student artwork; give a tour of your school or town or a nearby site of interest; share something you are studying; or share aspects of your students' lives and culture. Or, be creative! We welcome innovative and interesting new videos!

TIP: If you are a classroom teacher, consider involving your Technology teacher.

b) You/students may edit your video(s) at your own discretion (adding titles, effects, etc.), though it is not necessary to do so. (The videos you receive will have minimal editing.)

c) Review the video for appropriate content (for more on this, see our Terms of Use).

d) E-mail your video(s) to paul@oneworldclassrooms.org as an attachment. If the file is too large to send via E-mail, post it on a free file sharing Web site like Simple Share or SendSpace and send the location using to the Email address above -- OR copy it onto a CD and mail it via regular mail to:

OneWorld Classrooms
PO Box 534
N. Andover, MA 01845
USA

Include a cover letter or note indicating the teacher's name, grade level, school, city, state/province and country and explaining the content.

Please send your video(s) before March 5th, 2011.

e). We may deliver your video(s) directly to an Amazon school or post your video(s) on a password-protected section of the OneWorld Classrooms Web site for viewing by Amazon classes. Please inform us if you prefer that your video(s) not be posted on the Web site.

f). Please send questions or concerns to paul@oneworldclassrooms.org.

EMERGENT LAYER PARTICIPATION

Teachers who have registered for the Emergent Layer level will receive all of the Forest Floor, Understory and Canopy content and benefits, plus be able to participate in:

1-on-1 and/or Group Videoconference Q & A Sessions

All participating classes/teams/schools will have opportunities to schedule video conferences with:

1. Students and teachers in the Amazon Rain Forest. These 30-minute sessions will be scheduled from March 14th through March 25th. They will be monitored by OneWorld Classrooms staff or volunteers.

2.OneWorld Classrooms project leader Paul Hurteau, who has lived and taught in the Amazon Rain Forest and has visited the Amazon ten times since 1994. These 20-30-minute sessions may be scheduled in April.

3. Amazon experts, including indigenous leaders, indigenous crafts makers, scientists, travel writers and more.*

*We will post a complete list of participating Amazon experts and available dates in November, 2010.

We will Email you with details and guidelines.

TERMS OF USE/PRIVACY POLICY

For information about OneWorld Classrooms' Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, including use of submitted artwork and digital content, please visit this page.

CONTACT US

If you require support or have questions at any point during the program period, please send an E-mail to paul@oneworldclassrooms.org.

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FREE TRAVEL & LEARN ONLINE CONTENT

Travel to the world region you are studying from right inside your own classroom, meet students who live there and learn about their languages and cultures. Visit OneWorld Classrooms' FREE Travel and Learn Online content at www.oneworldclassrooms.org/travel/index1.html.

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Artwork by middle school student in Yunnan Province, China

AMAZON RAIN FOREST SCHOOL PROJECT AT A GLANCE

Watch your curriculum come alive as your class travels with our team of educators, from the comfort of your classroom, to the Amazon Rain Forest!
Receive daily electronic content focusing on the Amazon: Google Earth tours, E-Travel Logs, resource activity Emails, and guess-who animal poems.
Interact with Amazon students: art, Q & A, PowerPoint and video exchanges.
Seamlessly integrate technology and art into your curriculum
Program timetable: Jan. 18th - Mar. 12th, 2011. The program coincides with OneWorld Classrooms staff and volunteers traveling to visit Amazon Rain Forest schools in February, 2011.

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CONTACT INFORMATION

To contact OneWorld Classrooms regarding your participation in the ARFS Project, send an E-mail to: paul@oneworldclassrooms.org. We provide E-mail support, whenever needed.

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TIPS FOR A GREAT ADVENTURE

The ARFS Project is a unique opportunity for your students to interact with children from a very different culture. Start by having them explore their own lives and culture, so they can extend their understanding to their new friendship. Explore how similarities bond us as human beings and cultural differences make us unique. Emphasize that 'different' does not equal 'better or worse.'
We will be sending you a forest full of Amazon content. Each time you receive an Email, review the content quickly to assess whether it matches your curriculum and needs. If so, review it more thoroughly to determine how you can best integrate the content into your lessons.
Teachers are busy people! Where possible, recruit a parent or two to help coordinate your exchanges.
Art and technology are powerful ways for your students to share who they are, teach about their culture -- and make friends. Encourage them to do their best!
(For art exchanges,) where possible, involve your Art teacher -- or an Artist in Residence, to empower your students to create artwork they will be proud to share.
For a more meaningful art exchange, include student photos, attached to the artwork.

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COLLABORATION TOOLS &
RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS

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