Tropics Biome:  Learning Extra



KAPOK TREES

Describe ways people depend on tropical trees





DESCRIPTION

The kapok tree can grow to be about 150 feet high, although most range in height between 70 to 120 feet. The buttress of the tree, which supports it and looks like a tripod, may be 30 feet at its base.



The tree has hundreds of football-shaped pods that are about six inches long.  Inside the pods are fibrous seeds and a cotton-like material.  The fibers look like cotton or milkweed but are finer.  The cotton-like fibers are too smooth to be spun.  The fibers are very resilient, buoyant, and very impervious to water.  After taking the fibers out of the seed, the seed can be squeezed to produce an oil that is similar to cotton seed oil.  It can be used in cooking, making soap or margarine, and in rare cases, to burn in lamps.  The fiber is used as insulation in sleeping bags and as a stuffing material.  The Indians also use the cotton from the kapok tree on the poison darts which are part of their blowguns.  With the development of foam rubber, plastics, and man-made fibers, it is not as useful as it once was, but it still fills specialty uses.



OUTCOME

The student will know, comprehend, and interpret the values, beliefs and emotions regarding the issues surrounding the kapok tree. The student will be able to describe ways in which people, both locally and globally, depend upon and are responsible for the valuable resources of the earth's tropical forest biome.



ACTIVITY

Materials needed

Cherry, Lynn, The Great Kapok Tree, Harcourt Brace, 1990



Directions:

1.  Read The Great Kapok Tree.



2.  Discuss the following questions:

	a)  Why was the kapok tree important to the animals and people of the rain forest?

	b)  Predict what will happen if people cut down all the trees in the rain forest?

	c)  Explain how some of the animals and people depended on the rain forest.

	d)  What do you think it would be like to live in a world without trees?

	e)  The three-toed sloth asked the man if he could live without beauty.  What do you

                  think?  Could you?

	f)  What did the bee mean when it said, "All living things depend on one another"?

	g)  What did the boa constrictor mean when it said of the kapok tree, "This tree is

                   a tree of miracles."?

	h)  Describe the tropical forest in your own words.

	i)  What is the canopy of the tropical forest?  Identify some of the animals that live 		      in the canopy.

	j)  What is the understory of the tropical forest?  Identify some of the animals that 	    	      live in the understory.

	k)  Name some countries that have tropical forests.



3.  Discuss the variety of uses we have for various trees of the tropics.



4.  Discuss the cultural characteristics of the tropics of Southeast Asia.





EXTENSIONS

Read A Panther's Dream by Bob & Wendy Weir,  Hyperion Books, 1991, about a young tribal member who looks for food in the tropical forest or other books on the topic.  Identify statements of fact and opinion. 



Review a source on tribal people of the tropics.  Expand as interest in the topic dictates.



GRADING CRITERIA

*  Locate tropical forests of the world.

*  Identify the geographic features and cultural characteristics of the Southeast Asian            	tropical forest.

*  Identify the main ideas and supporting details of the book.

*  Describe the relationship between the tree and humans.