Student Activities - Introduction

• 1. Students should read the Ecology Focus, "Tropical Rain Forests: Can We Live Without Them?" before coming to class. First, show a video or computer software disk listed in the preceding "Technology" section to enhance student understanding of this controversy. Then divide the class into groups. Each group is to list three reasons in favor of tropical rain forest preservation and three reasons against preservation, and develop a pro and con talk based on these reasons. One member of each group is to give the pro talk, and another member is to give the con talk. Summarize the pros and cons on the chalkboard as the talks are given. Then help the entire class come to a consensus.

• 2. Social and environmental responsibility are duties for each human. Discuss with your students their ideas on the following statements (from G. Tyler Miller, Jr., Living in the Environment: An Introduction to Environmental Science, 6th ed. [Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1990]):

  All people must be held responsible for their own pollution and environmental degradation.

  We are a valuable species, but we are not superior to other species; all living beings, human or nonhuman, have the same inherent worth.

  Possible questions to ask students include: If each of us is responsible for the pollution we generate, then who is responsible for the pollution from factories? From agriculture? From mass transit? From heating or cooling the building in which your classroom is located? What makes people believe they are superior to other creatures on earth? Is this a valid assumption or not?