Exhibits

The Rainforest

Welcome to The Rainforest and to the Rio dos Meninos Rainforest Reserve!

Before you begin your tour, visit our Travel Agency, with displays about rainforests, Brazil, and a giant floor-to-ceiling world map! View a Flash Movie

Check out of, and back into, the United States at our U.S. Customs booth-you'll need a passport to travel to Brazil, the Amazon River Basin, and the Rio dos Meninos Rainforest Reserve!

To help prepare you for your visit, look over the more than 40 paintings of the rainforest. They were a gift from the Museo Austral Naif, a museum of primitive art in Argentina!

Begin your rainforest tour at the Rio dos Meninos Rainforest Reserve Visitors Center- sign our guest book, and see a video to get you ready to enter the rainforest!

Tour our simulated Amazon rainforest, complete with sound effects, a waterfall, a railed walkway, beautiful murals, an observation deck high in the forest canopy-and many trees, flowers, and wild animals!

When you're ready, return to the Rio dos Meninos Rainforest Reserve Visitors Center to learn more about rainforests-read a book, use Internet resources-see a snakeskin, or study giant bugs and reptiles!

The Rainforest Exhibit was partially funded by a generous grant from Molten Metals Corporation.

Why did we build our tropical rainforest?

The tropical rainforests of the world are beautiful, complex ecosystems which contain more than half of all living animal and plant species. As more research is done, we learn how very important rainforests are to the welfare of the earth and to all of its living creatures, including all people.

We developed our exhibit to encourage children to learn more about rain- forests by experiencing it in a playful setting with many different opportunity levels to see, understand, and learn. From the mock travel agency entrance through the activity-packed, interactive visitor's center, we tell a story of what rain- forests are all about-and why it is important to preserve them.

What can I see, touch, do, and learn in The Rainforest?

There are so many things to experience in our tropical rainforest that it's difficult to list them all! For starters, you can watch for jaguars, count leaf cutter ants and butterflies, hear and see a waterfall, talk to a toucan, see a snakeskin, visit giant bugs...and oh, so much more!

Do you want to travel to a hot and rainy place and see snakes and toucans, jaguars and monkeys, frogs with poisonous skin-trees tall as 20-story buildings?

You do?

Then come to Brazil and visit our Rio dos Meninos Rainforest Reserve in the Amazon rainforest!

Welcome to the Visitors Center! It's part of our research facility, where you can visit as long as you wish. Please sign our guest book, and watch a short video about our facility and walking tour. Our bulletin board has current news about the world's rainforests from newspapers, journals, and the Internet. Here you can learn more about rainforests and how you can help protect them. Then, when you're ready for adventure...it's time to tour the rainforest!

There are a few rules: keep your hands inside the walkway, use very soft voices or whispers so you can hear the jungle noises, and walk very slowly so you don't miss any of the animals hiding everywhere in the dim light!

There are so many things to see! Markers along the walkway will help point you to some of our favorites.

Start at the huge emergent tree, peeking above the forest canopy. This tree is 200 feet tall, and home to thousands of animals and plants. Can you find any?

Next, find the tree with enormous buttress roots. This root system helps keep giant trees from falling over. A toucan has found a cozy place for a nest- do you see her?

Look up! You might see golden lion tamarin monkeys, happy to have found some fruit.

Have you noticed all the leaf cutter ants? They use the leaves to grow a fungus that they eat.

Do you know what camouflage means? Animals with colors like their background habitat aren't as likely to be seen-or eaten!-as those with colors that contrast with their backgrounds. Find the camouflage marker, then look up. Which butterfly do you see first?

Do you hear a waterfall? You're close to the Rio dos Meninos, a small tributary of the huge Amazon River. Our researchers study river life here. Look! They left their canoe near the walkway! Many animals, birds, and insects enjoy the river. How many do you see or hear?

Watch out! There could be jaguars in the tree canopy over your head! Do you see them? If they're napping, please don't wake them up!

Have you noticed how bright and beautiful rainforest flowers are? They need to make a big, showy display so insects and birds can find them in the dim light.

Climb up into the observation deck to get a better view of the forest. From there, you'll see even more animals, birds, and flowers.

Trees that fall in the rainforest are quickly decomposed by insects, earthworms, fungi, and bacteria. Have you seen a decaying log on the forest floor? When a tree falls, it opens a space in the canopy to let in light that helps smaller trees grow.

Did you enjoy your tour?

When you go back to your school or home, discuss what you have learned, along with ways you can help the world's rainforests.

Maybe someday you'll be the scientist who finds a powerful new rainforest medicine to cure illnesses in the 21st century.