Many useful products come from a tropical rainforest such as fruits, vegetables, spices, medicines, and construction materials. Look at the pictures of these plants. See if you have any of the items at home to examine such as bay leaves. Then decide if the product is a seed, root, bark, leaf, or sap of the plant. The answers are below all the pictures.
| Bay Leaf Tree | ||
| Brazil Nuts in Pod | ||
| Cashew Nut | ||
| Chocolate from Cocoa Bean from a Cacao Tree | ||
| Cinnamon | ||
| Ginger | ||
| Nutmeg | ||
| Peanuts | ||
| Rubber | ||
| Vanilla Bean |
Answers: Bay leaf-leaf; Brazil nut-seed (several nuts grow in a pod!); cashews-seed (from the bottom part of the fruit!); chocolate/cocoa bean-seed; cinnamon-bark; ginger-root; nutmeg-seed; peanuts-root; rubber-sap (bark is cut an angle for the flow of sap to go in the bucket); and vanilla bean-seed.
The temperature of tropical rainforests is mild-about 78 degrees F. Rainforests are humid with 60 to 80 inches or rainfall each year. Most tropical rainforests are near the equator in South and Central America, central and western Africa and Madagascar and southeast Asia/New Guinea. To learn more about the rainforest, explore some of our databases and find photos, videos, articles, and full-text books and magazines (in National Geographic Kids).
Explora for Elementary Schools
Explore these e-books for kids on the rainforest.
