Tracking Global Changes in Forest Cover

• In this activity, students will analyze two graphs that show the change in the annual loss of forests in Indonesia and Brazil. 

Positives

• The Educator Materials document includes a captioned figure, background information, graph interpretation, and discussion questions.
• The materials are available in English and Spanish.

Additional Prerequisites

• The data is from 2000 to 2012, so the trends in deforestation are not up to date.
• Students should know how to read a bar graph.

Differentiation

• Social studies or civics classes could learn more about the policies that Brazil enacted to preserve forests. Students could discuss how the policies have changed and if similar policies could help preserve forests in other countries.
• Biology classes could discuss how deforestation impacts biodiversity because of habitat loss.
• Other resources on this topic include this article about deforestation and Indigenous communities, this Google Earth timelapse video on forests around the world, and this article about the importance of primary forests. 

This resource addresses the listed standards. To fully meet standards, search for more related resources.