Saving the Rainforest One Plant at a Time
Exploring rainforest plants containing medicinal properties
By Jacqueline Dwyer
The rainforest. It is home to half of the world’s plant and animal species. But in recent years, due to widespread deforestation, its surface area has decreased from 14% to a mere 6%. What isn’t commonly known about the rainforest, is that it helps to supply us with a great deal of our medicines. In fact, one quarter of the world’s medicines are derived from rainforest plants. Also, 37% of the United States’ prescribed medicines have active ingredients that are derived from rainforests (all of the information found above comes from a website that compiles information about the rainforest - Raintree.com). For this reason, I wanted my homeschooled children to understand the importance of rainforest conservation from a medicinal perspective.
We began by locating the rainforests on a world map. Then we researched the plants that belong to each discrete region, like Madagascar’s rosy periwinkle; a delicate, unassuming little plant that helps fight diabetes, malaria, and cancer. In fact, more than two-thirds of all medicines found to have cancer-fighting properties come from rainforest plants. Next, we looked at the trumpet tree, which is used to fight respiratory illness and rheumatism. We also noted how oil extract from the Annatto tree can help lower blood pressure, how the sorosi vine treats ticks externally and dysentery when taken internally, and how the clavillia herb is used to treat a wide array of bacterial and viral infections. It was as much an education for me, as it was for my children. Conducting research side-by-side, gave my children context so they weren’t overwhelmed by doom and gloom scenarios. They put each plant on a separate piece of paper, along with a picture of it, and the diseases it helped combat. Then they stapled everything together in alphabetical order to make their own plant-based medical journal. At the back of the journal they added a glossary, an index, and cross-references.
As my children were researching the plants, the term ‘non-renewable resources’ kept appearing. We discussed how we can send a message to businesses that harm the rainforest and deplete its resources by not buying their products. This is how our letter writing campaign began. My children aren’t usually fond of writing, but writing for a cause motivated them. They learned the styles involved in writing friendly correspondence versus business letters. Then they wrote letters to several companies, specifying why we were not buying their products anymore. We also sent emails, taking our family off catalog mailing lists. Drug companies received letters from my children asking them what they are doing to conserve the rainforests. Finally, we wrote to publishing companies, since we discovered that several of them publish books about rainforest conservation, using paper from rainforest trees!
Because conservation is an ongoing, year-round effort, we put attainable goals in place for us, as a family, over the next few months: We joined the Rainforest Action Network, made a pledge to use only recycled paper, and promised to walk to the grocery store at least once a week. Below are some great ways to empower children to take the action needed to stop the destruction of our beloved and beleaguered rainforests.
Rainforest Lessons:
Students create a "Wall of Wonder" depicting gifts - food, oxygen, medicine - that comes from the rainforest.
Students conduct experiments to verify the power of plants used by the indigenous people of the rainforest.
Students read about the role of rainforests in the world's environment. They write a letter to a member of Congress or the Senate requesting legislation to protect the habitat.