The Amazon Teacher’s Guide
The Mighty Amazon
To learn about the vast South American rain forest, we must first learn about the heart that gives life to the forest. It is the mightiest river in the world. Its name is AMAZON.
The Amazon River is born high in the Andes Mountains. It begins as a cold trickle of water, no wider than a broomstick. As rain falls and snow melts, other streams from far away flow to meet it. The river grows larger, louder, faster. It rushes over forest cliffs and makes thunderous waterfalls. Sun strikes the mist and a double rainbow appears!
The river twists, turns, flattens and widens. In some places it seems like a big, quiet sea. This vast, flowing water network is one of the biggest and most mysterious wildlife homes on our planet!
Waters of the Amazon River and its
tributaries contain 5,000 different species of fish, with perhaps as many as 2,000 more awaiting discovery. Look closely in these waters, and you might see some tiny, familiar friends. Many fish commonly found in home aquariums are South American freshwater species. Electric eels, secretive stingrays, sharks, and razor-toothed piranhas also swim here. Long-nosed pink river dolphins click and clack and squeak, using echolocation, like the fish-eating bats above them, to find food and avoid obstacles. Gentle giants, the Amazonian manatees, graze on underwater plants and communicate with each other by muzzle-to-muzzle touching and chirps. Giant river otters, one of the most endangered mammals in the world, frolic and play, but become deadly serious when it's time to eat. All this, and yet only ripples and the odd splash made by a jumping fish give any clue to the abundance of life beneath the water's surface.
But the Amazon is much more than just one river. Like veins in a leaf, hundreds of streams join larger ones until they reach the mighty Amazon. The entire area, known as the Amazon basin, is more than ten times the size of France!
