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Tropical Edition

* Note: All editions of the Natural Inquirer starting with Volume 5 and including future editions require the newest version of Adobe Acrobat Reader 6.0 in order to be downloaded. We have upgraded in order to ensure greater accessibility to PDF files. Please click on the following link if you need to upgrade your Adobe Acrobat reader: Upgrade now to Adobe Reader 6.0. It is a free upgrade.

• Games & Activities

  Want a way to make the articles more interesting and help your students remember the information?  Use our fun word search documents and other various activities.  Blank copies and answer keys are provided.  Download the PDFs by clicking the link.

  For more information visit http://www.naturalinquirer.org/Games-and-Resources-v-32.html#Tropical

• The International Institute of Tropical Forestry

  The International Institute of Tropical Forestry, IITF, is located in Puerto Rico, a tropical island in the Caribbean Sea. The IITF conducts research to help keep tropical forests healthy now and into the future, to help protect the animals that live in the forests, and to take care of streams and rivers and the forests around them.

  For more information visit http://www.fs.fed.us/global/iitf

In the Tropical edition of the Natural Inquirer you will learn about different types of plants and animals. The tropics are the home of a variety of biomes, or regions with different kinds of vegetation and other life. Tropical biomes are largely defined by the amount of rainfall they get. In the tropics, you might find rain forests, dry forests, shrub lands, tropical plains called savannahs, and deserts. Scientists working in the International Institute of Tropical Forestry, or IITF, conducted the research in this issue. We hope you enjoy your journey to the tropics!

• I'll Huff and I'll Puff and I'll Blow Your Trees Down: How Wind Speed Affected Trees During Hurricane Hugo
• It's a Gas! The Exchange of Gases Between the Soil and the Atmosphere
• Leaf Me Alone! The Movement of Nutrients Between Trees and the Soil
• Oooh! That's Growth! Measuring Trees in Cinnamon Bay Watershed
• Please Join Us for Dinner: Tropical Birds and Their Temporary Guests
• Some Things Will Always Change: Land Use in a Dry Tropical Forest
• Swimming Upstream Without a Ladder: Dams and Pipes and River Shrimp Movements
• The Trees Have Gone Batty! How Bat Scat Helped Restore a Tropical Forest