Rousettus in Phuket, photo taken by Nick Baker

Virtual Workshop: Rainforest Signals and Senses

Assisted by augmented reality, experience the rainforest through the ‘super senses’ of a bat, a bee and a mosquito.

In this Virtual Workshop, pupils discover the invisible signals, senses and relationships between plants and animals in the rainforest before deciding what they think humans can learn from them.

Book a virtual workshop

This workshop is delivered online by a member of our Education Team just for your class. We’ll lead the session - delivering live activities, challenges and conversations with your class- all supported by our digital platform. We will also provide all the resources and materials you need to support your learners in class.

Workshop Overview

This workshop harnesses the power of augmented reality, enabling your students to experience the Tropical Rainforest like never before.

The children begin the session by considering where in the world we find Tropical Rainforests (and learning what conditions are like there) and become familiar with some of the rainforest’s inhabitants by playing a classification game.

We introduce the idea of interdependence by diving into the symbiotic relationships between 3 of the characters from the rainforest (the bat, bee and mosquito) and their respective plant partners. Using the power of augmented reality, the children experience the incredible adaptations or ‘super senses’ that these creatures possess – ultrasonic hearing, UV vision and infrared detection. They discover how both the animals and the plants are benefitting from the relationships they have formed; nectar in return for pollination.

We conclude by considering what humans can learn from the way that nature works in the rainforest. We are not separate from the natural world around us - we to, are a part of it and depend on it for our survival.

How does this workshop support the curriculum?

This workshop enables students to:

Locate some of the world’s Tropical Rainforests, describing what conditions are like there and why they are ideal for plant growth
Define what is meant by the term biodiversity and classify some examples of Tropical Rainforest biodiversity
Give examples of unusual adaptations that help animals to survive in the Tropical Rainforest
Describe examples of interdependence between animals and plants in the Tropical Rainforest
Explain why humans are also dependent on rainforests and ecosystems, giving examples

We've designed the workshop to help teachers cover the following subject areas:

Yr3 Science - identify and describe the function of different parts of flowering plants, describe the requirements of plants for life, pollination.

Yr4 Science - classification of living things, recognise that environments can change and that this can sometimes pose dangers to living things, food chains, identify how sounds are made and travel.

Yr5 Science - life cycles of mammals and insects, reproduction in plants.

Yr6 Science - identify how animals and plants are adapted to suit their environment in different ways, interdependence.

How it works

An Eden Teacher will be based in the Core Education Centre at Eden and will lead the live workshop. You and your class will be the only participants – it's just for you.

The Eden Teacher will introduce Eden and the session and lead your pupils through a mixture of presentation, film, short tasks, Q&A. At least one teacher will need to remain present during the workshop, either in your physical classroom or as a participant on the call if pupils are joining from multiple locations. We’ll ask for your help organising groups and selecting pupils to give feedback.

We’ll provide all the resources necessary prior to the session and ask you to make them available to pupils via individual devices or in hard copy – we keep this to a minimum.

The sessions are delivered via video conference using Zoom (our preference) or Microsoft Teams. We’ll send you your unique meeting details after your booking confirmation.

You’ll need a computer with the ability to join a videoconference with a webcam and microphone connected to or built into the computer so that the Eden Teacher can see and hear your class.

You’ll also a smartboard, screen or projector and speakers connected to the computer so that your class can see and hear the Eden Teacher.

Each event is only attended by a single class with a unique access code for each booking.
Sessions are delivered from the Eden Project in a location where no members of the public will have access to seeing the students on screen.
A minimum of two adults should always be present online, if Eden staff believe they are alone with the group they will end the call.
It is not acceptable for anyone (including school staff) to record visual or audio content, take screen shots or videos or share private information without documented permission.
If any pupils are joining from home rather than from the school classroom, participants will be held in a waiting room before the event and teachers are invited from the waiting room into the meeting first to verify they are teachers and to confirm the names of students expected in the session.