rainforest

Everyday

1. A rainforest is a thick forest of tall trees in a place where it rains a lot almost every month. tree →
2. Most rainforests are tropical, near the equator and hot all year; some are temperate, cooler and wet, like those in New Zealand, Tasmania and the north-west of the USA and Canada. tree →

In the lessons

In science and geography lessons, rainforests are taught as habitats with layers (forest floor, understorey, canopy, emergent layer), huge numbers of plants and animals, and as places that help the whole planet by taking in carbon dioxide and giving out oxygen. Pupils learn about cutting down (deforestation) and protecting rainforests. The Amazon is the biggest. Phrases: tropical rainforest, the Amazon rainforest, rainforest animals, rainforest layers.

Examples

• The Amazon rainforest is the largest rainforest in the world. tree →
• Sloths, toucans and jaguars live in the rainforest. tree →
• It rains almost every afternoon in a tropical rainforest. tree →
• The canopy is the leafy roof of the rainforest. tree →
• Very little sunlight reaches the rainforest floor. tree →
• We made a model rainforest in a shoebox for our project. tree →
• Queensland in Australia has rainforests near the coast. tree →
• Cutting down rainforests destroys the homes of many animals. tree →

Note

Countable: one rainforest, two rainforests. Written as one word or two (rain forest). Myth: rainforests are not the «lungs of the Earth» in a simple way — oceans make much of the oxygen too — but rainforests are still very important. Not every rainforest is hot: temperate rainforests are cool.