Live from the Rainforest

Jewels of our planet, tropical rainforests adorn our world with rare beauty. This site was conceived as a comprehensive resource for the exploration of rainforest diversity and rainforests’ role in sustaining life on the planet. When “live,” the site’s real-time interactions and hands-on science activities let students explore what Darwin called “the greatest expression of life.” The result is a panoply of wildlife image galleries, maps, interviews, experiments, and dispatches that give users a planetary perspective on the world’s rainforests. Giving classroom-bound students an in-the-field experience was the goal of Live From the Rainforest. Scientists made weekly “live broadcasts” from the Amazon rainforest with video, Web chats, and on-air email, along with daily updates from the field team—both online and via satellite. Video, QTVR, and animation let students see the rainforest live and breathe. An extensive database was used to collect and organize data, and teachers could register for the project, sample lesson plans, order multimedia kits, connect with online mentors, and track classroom participation.