Rainforest adventurer

Eleanor introduces the Rainforest Adventurer script for a younger audience. She discusses the animals she will be using, including a snail, stick insect, cockroach, tarantula, millipede, snake, and frog. She explains the rules for the session and talks about her journey to the rainforest. She describes the lush green rainforest and the abundance of plants and animals. Eleanor introduces each animal and shares interesting facts about them. She talks about the importance of rainforests and their location near the equator. She also mentions the adaptations of the animals to survive in the rainforest. Hi everybody, it's Eleanor here and today we are going to be going over the Rainforest Adventurer script. So the animals that I'm going to use are the snail, stick insect, cockroach, tarantula, millipede, snake and frog. So this script is typically catered to a younger audience, so the more animated you can be the better. It is essentially you telling a story of going through the rainforest and all of the amazing animals that you found along the way. So starting out your session just like any other, having the audience arranged in a semi-circle in the room, you at the front with the animal back behind you and then an introduction. So hi guys, my name is Eleanor and I have come from the rainforest to talk to you all about these wonderful jungles. Now I've brought along with me some very special guests, the animals that live in these rainforests. Now we're going to be meeting the animals so we do have three rules that we need to remember. The first rule is we need to make sure that we are nice and quiet so we don't frighten any of the animals. The second rule is to stick to your spot so everybody can see and the third rule is if we are going to be holding and stroking some animals today, we need to make sure that we keep our hands away from our faces and we can give our hands a really good wash at the end. Now I have come to talk to you today all about the amazing rainforests on our planet and I decided I wanted to see them for myself and pretty quickly I realised that we don't have any rainforests in the UK. Now this really confused me because we have lots of forests and we have a lot of rain but does anybody know why we don't have a rainforest? Now you may get some answers but if not you can lead them to it with things like so there's something really warm in the sky that we don't get that much of in the UK. That's right, the sun. Now Britain is too cold to have a rainforest and there is actually an imaginary line that goes around the centre of our planet known as the equator. Now that is where it's hot enough for all of these tropical rainforests. So our rainforests are located in South America, Africa and Asia. Now I decided I wanted to go to South America and it took three whole aeroplanes and a jeep to get there. Now it was a really long journey but when I finally arrived it was so beautiful. I could see the rainforest from the plane and it looked just like a lush green carpet as far as the eye could see. Every so often there was a gigantic tree emerging from the blanket as if it was trying to jump to the sky. Now the rainforest layer was so thick I couldn't see between the trees however in a short while I knew I would be below that quilt of trees staring at them from below. Now if there are lots of plants and trees in a rainforest then there's got to be lots of animals that like to eat them and there are. Over half of all the world's animals live in the rainforest and I brought a few of them to meet you today. Now on my first day in the rainforest I was so excited to get going so I set through walking along the rainforest floor. Now it's pretty dark down here because all of the trees are blocking out the sunlight so as I'm making my way through the rainforest floor all of a sudden I had tripped over what looked like a huge rock. Now when I looked closer at the rock it actually wasn't a rock it was a shell and out of this shell came two very long eyes investigating what has just fallen over me. It was a snail but not just a regular garden snail this was a giant snail. Then I would introduce your snail, take your snail around and do your handling on flat hands or stroking the shell and then giving out your snail facts. How this animal survives on the rainforest floor, eating things like dead, decaying plants, how they use their amazing sense of touch and smell to navigate their way around in the dark. Now using ropes we managed to climb into some smaller trees of the understory. Now there were so many plants and trees it was absolutely amazing when all of a sudden I started to notice there were a few branches moving and it looked like they were moving by themselves. Now when I got closer I realised these were not branches they were sticks and not just an ordinary stick they were stick insects hiding so well in the trees that I had barely spotted them. These animals look just like sticks so their camouflage is incredible. So then next up I would introduce your stick taking your stick insect around and giving out your general stick insect facts doing your handling as well. Now the next day our guide took us to some caves. Now in these caves it was so dark and so cramped we had to squeeze through the smallest gaps. Now we turned our torches and shone them straight up and this cavern was huge. All of a sudden I heard what I thought was a hissing sound. Now what animal makes a hiss? That's right a snake! At first I thought there might be a really big snake in the back of this cave but then I heard hissing and scurrying. When I shone my torch down onto the ground there were thousands of insects and these were not just any insect they were hissing cockroaches. Now these cockroaches were making a sound just like a snake and they were trying to trick me into what their predators would do. If they hear a snake in a dark cave they are not sticking around for very long so this noise is their defence technique. Now they like to hang out in really dark places. Cockroaches are amazing at surviving in small cramped areas and there is one thing that they want in this cave more than anything else and it's something that falls from the bats that are sleeping on the ceiling. That's right everybody a cockroach's favourite food is stinky bat poop. So then I would take your cockroach around and give out all of your general facts so all the adaptations they have, their ability to climb and run and the fact that they are an amazing survivor. Now on one excursion the guide took us to a small mound of rotting leaves and soil. Now she told us to tread very very quietly. She pointed a stick at a small hole at the base of the mound. She pointed out some webbing around the opening. What do you think might be in this hole? That's right it was a tarantula. Now the guide so gently tapped the webbing on the outside of this mound and well for a second nothing happened until all of a sudden lightning fast out shot eight legs thinking there might be a bug or an insect for it to eat. It pretty quickly realised that it was not an insect it was just a stick so it let go and hid straight back underground. Now tarantulas prefer to be underneath the ground where they are safe in a burrow so they don't really make webs like a spider they make a blanket around the entrance of their burrow and using hairs on their legs can sense vibrations and movement. So then I would continue taking your tarantula around the room and just giving out more facts about tarantulas how they are adapted to surviving in the rainforest, what they eat, their camouflage etc. Now in the rainforest even some of the tallest trees eventually will fall over and this can actually be a pretty good thing. It allows smaller trees to be able to stretch and grow towards the sunlight and also the rotting logs are an amazing habitat for lots of different species. Now we came across one of these rotting logs on our guide decided to turn it over to see what was underneath and out ran nearly 20 giant millipedes. They zigzagged in every direction until eventually they just curled up in a really tight ball. Now curled up in a really tight ball it didn't even look like they were animals they looked like a shell or a fossil and if you didn't know they were there you would definitely not see them. Now these millipedes were doing a really important job underneath the rotting log. Millipedes are cleaners and they will clean up old leaves and plants. They eat them up, they digest them and then they poop them out again and believe it or not millipede poop is amazing. It is like fresh soil so the trees will eat all of the nutrients from the millipede poop. They are like little recycling machines. Then I would introduce your millipede, take your millipede around and just give your general facts about your millipede. Now walking through the rainforest can be pretty tricky. There aren't many paths and the branches and trees are so thick you are constantly having to push your way through these trees and as I was pushing my way through the trees all of a sudden I saw something on the ground. Now we got to a clearing and I rested on a huge rock that I had found on the ground when all of a sudden something came slithering out from underneath it. It was a huge snake. Now this snake had camouflaged itself around the rock so well that I didn't even see it at first and I could not believe how fast the snake slithered away. Now the snakes in the rainforest everybody can get pretty big so I don't have a snake from the rainforest. I have an American corn snake but this snake has all the same adaptations that the rainforest snakes have. They are just much easier to hold. So then I would take your snake around the room giving out your facts. So part of the reptile family they are cold-blooded, they can shed their skin, they sense vibrations and taste the air with their tongue and the fact that even though we found this snake on the ground lots of snakes will live in different layers of the rainforest. Some all the way up to the canopy and by coiling around the trees and using thousands of muscles they are actually amazing climbers. Now on one day we did go to a part of the rainforest that had constructed a wooden tower that reached so high into the trees. Not quite to the canopy but you could climb ropes up to the canopy. So I attached myself to the harness and started climbing when all of a sudden something cold, wet and slimy had jumped straight onto the end of my nose. Now when I finally opened my eyes I saw two huge red eyes staring back at me. Can we think of an animal that's cold, slimy, has sticky hands and huge red eyes? It was a tree frog. Now luckily this was not a poisonous tree frog. Does anybody know how to tell? Now poisonous tree frogs will have big bright colours that act as a warning to predators to stop them from being eaten. Luckily this was not a poisonous tree frog, it was an amazing red-eyed tree frog. Now I have with me today a white tree frog and I'm going to bring them around in their box so we can have a good look at them. Then I would introduce your frog, taking your frog around the room explaining why they are not able to be handled and giving out all of your frog facts so they can take in oxygen and water through their skin, they have really strong powerful back legs to help them jump, typically are nocturnal so will come out at night time, how they catch their food, what they eat etc. Now it's not just animals that we take from the rainforest and that we love to see in the rainforest. Over a quarter of all the world's medicines originate from plant life in the rainforest. Now we have just seen some of the millions and millions of animals from the richest ecosystem in the world, an ecosystem that we need to protect because it may not be around for much longer. These rainforests have been growing for millions and millions of years but could be gone in just 50 years. Now they might be thousands of miles away but their effects are right on our doorstep so we need to think about how we can protect our rainforest. But everybody that was our last animal so there is one last thing we need to do, that's right we need to wash our hands. So then I would pass them back to their teacher to get the audience to wash their hands and finish up your session.