Tropical Rainforests

What is Tropical Rainforests?

Within Geography, which covers maps, landforms, weather, climate, population and settlements: understand how our planet and people connect, this topic explains Tropical Rainforests. Geography explains how places, people and natural processes connect, so each topic here combines a clear definition with a visual model.

Check that you can explain Tropical Rainforests in your own words and give one example from everyday life. If you can do that, you have understood the core idea.

Understanding Tropical Rainforests helps you explain patterns on maps and in the news, and make reasoned decisions about places and environments.

Tropical Rainforests in detail

Tropical rainforests grow near the Equator, where it is hot (about 27 °C) and wet (over 2,000 mm of rain a year) all year. They have the highest biodiversity on land, with layers: emergent trees, canopy, understorey and forest floor.

Plants are adapted: drip tips shed water, buttress roots support tall trees and epiphytes grow on branches. Nutrients are recycled quickly in a shallow layer, so soils are poor once trees are cleared. Rainforests regulate climate, absorb carbon dioxide and provide medicines and timber. Deforestation threatens them through logging, farming, mining and roads.

How the interactive helps you understand Tropical Rainforests

Watch the population model in the interactive. Use any sliders or buttons it offers to change the values and see how the population model responds.

Before you change anything, predict the result. Then change one value at a time and check whether your prediction was right. This is a quick way to build a correct mental model of Tropical Rainforests.

Real-life uses and examples

• Explain how Tropical Rainforests affects people, jobs and land use in a region.
• Support an answer about Tropical Rainforests with a named case study and specific evidence.
• Interpret a graph or map that shows Tropical Rainforests and say what it suggests.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Mixing up cause, effect and consequence when you explain Tropical Rainforests.
• Writing general statements without a named place or example.
• Learning the definition without testing it. Use the quiz and the interactive to check that you can apply the idea.