English, Literature, and the Bible: 1141 弘光英文一運休

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2025年12月9日星期二

Track 4.6

Can Animals Be Nice?

We know that people can be nice, but what about animals?

Some scientists think they can. Animals that live in groups, like chimpanzees and elephants, have to be nice to each other to survive. However, animals sometimes act nicely even when they don’t need to. Here are four stories.

One day in southern Australia, Leonie Allan was walking her dog Rex when she came across a dead kangaroo. A car hit it—sadly, this happened frequently in the area. But later that day, Rex went back to the body. There was a small baby kangaroo in its pouch! Rex pulled the baby out gently, brought it home, and placed it at Leonie’s feet. He saved the kangaroo’s life, and the two became good friends.

Geza Teleki is a scientist who studies chimpanzees in Tanzania. One day, Geza hiked far away from his campsite. He didn’t have any food with him, so he tried to get some fruit from a tree. But the tree was too tall. A young chimpanzee watched Geza curiously as he tried to get to the fruit. It then climbed up the tree, picked some fruit, and gave it to Geza!

An elephant in Kenya hurt its trunk. It needed help because it couldn’t put food into its mouth. Researcher Kayhan Ostovar watched silently. He saw the elephant show its injured trunk to a healthy elephant. The healthy elephant didn’t need any more information. It took some leaves and put them carefully into its friend’s mouth.

Hippos and crocodiles live together in rivers, and they usually get along. But Karen Paoilillo, a wildlife expert in Zimbabwe, saw something interesting. One day, a crocodile tried to eat a monkey that was next to a river. A hippo ran quickly to the crocodile and chased it away. Why did the hippo attack the crocodile? Karen says that sometimes hippos like to protect other animals.

Track 3.6

6 Things You Can Do About Plastic

Plastic pollution is a serious problem, and it’s getting worse. Because plastics aren’t biodegradable, they’ll stay in our oceans for a long time. Scientists are trying to create plastics that break down quickly, but the best solution for now is to use less plastic. Here are six tips that can help you:

Stop using plastic bags. Bring your own reusable ones to the store instead. Every year, people use a trillion plastic bags worldwide. In the United States alone, people use 100 billion bags annually—that’s almost one per person per day. But in Denmark, people use only four plastic bags a year! Denmark’s solution? It passed the world’s first bag tax in 1993.

Say “no” to straws. A study revealed that more than 8.3 billion plastic straws cover the world’s beaches. Americans throw away 500 million plastic straws every day—about 1.5 per person.

Don’t buy bottled water. Carry a refillable water bottle with you. Around the world, nearly a million plastic bottles are thrown away every minute. The problem is so bad that in some places like Bundanoon, Australia, stores aren’t allowed to sell bottled water anymore.

Avoid plastic packaging. Most of the things we buy come in plastic packaging. It’s everywhere, and some countries like France are trying to ban it. But there are things you can do, too: buy bar soap instead of liquid soap; buy things in bulk; and avoid fruit or vegetables packed in plastic.

Recycle what you can. In 2018, the world recycled only 18 percent of its plastic. Europe recycled about 30 percent, and China recycled 25 percent. But the US only recycled 9 percent—a drop in the bucket.

Don’t litter. 73 percent of the litter found on the world’s beaches is plastic. The most common types of plastic litter? Cigarette butts, bottles and bottle caps, food packaging, and plastic bags.

2025年11月25日星期二

Track 4.1

Track 4.1

The world is full of amazing animals. Many of these animals behave in interesting ways.

Sloths live in the Amazon rainforest. They live in trees and move really slowly when climbing from branch to branch. But in the water, they move quickly. Sloths are one of the slowest animals in the world on land. But they are quick in the water.

Bees live all over the world, and they work really hard—they have to visit more than four million flowers just to make one kilogram of honey! They also work very well in groups. They actually “dance” to tell other bees where to find flowers.

The great gray owl lives in the forests of the United States. These birds are good hunters. They wait patiently for their food. And when they locate it, they move quietly and quickly to catch it.

In South Africa, you can see many different types of dolphins. These beautiful animals swim gracefully, and they like to have fun—you often see them jump playfully out of the water.

3.2

3.2
Plastics are everywhere. We use them in all sorts of things. But is this amazing material that we love so much now becoming a problem? Because plastic is so useful, we make a lot of it. Since 1950, humans have produced 9.2 billion tons of plastic. That’s the weight of nearly 1,600 pyramids! Much of this plastic becomes trash that never goes away. Single use plastics, like straws and plastic bags, are the most harmful. They make up about 40% of all plastic waste. They are often not recycled, and hurt the environment, animals, and communities around the world.

To fight plastic pollution, we have to change. A great way is to reduce the amount of single use plastics we use by choosing reusable alternatives. For plastics that already exist, we have to find other solutions. Some scientists are asking nature for help. Wax worms and meal worms eat plastics and break them down. Some microbes also help break down plastics more quickly, from hundreds of years to only a few days.

Manufacturers have to change, too. Some are already using new ingredients from plants to make biodegradable bio-plastics. These materials are just like plastic, but because they come from natural ingredients, they can biodegrade. Manufacturers can also use rubber tree latex instead of plastic. The tree’s latex is very useful. People use it to make many products, such as rubber gloves and tires.

To solve the world’s plastic problem, we have to look for more natural solutions… like the rubber tree.

2025年11月19日星期三

3.1

3.1
Hi. I’m Marie McGrory with National Geographic Travel. Recently, I took a trip to Belize, and I challenged myself to do it without any single-use plastics. This is how I’m taking National Geographic’s Planet or Plastic pledge and putting it into action.

Avoiding single use plastics in everyday life is already pretty hard but doing it while you’re traveling can be even harder. It means you have to avoid things like plastic water bottles, and those shampoos at hotels, and pretty much anything you can eat at an airport.

Here’s what I chose to bring to replace the single use plastics that I would normally be using. A reusable grocery bag, bamboo utensils, a glass straw, collapsible Tupperware, bar soap and bar shampoo, two reusable water bottles, and a Steripen.

There is so much I learned from this experience. But here are four things that I think are really important.

First thing, you have to ask. “Got a straw on my first night and my last night.” Having a glass straw is not helpful if you forget to say, “No straw, please.”

Second thing is you have to research the water situation. I couldn’t drink the tap water in Belize. And I worried that if I couldn’t purify my water, I would end up using dozens of plastic water bottles. I was so relieved that all of the lodges I stayed in and a lot of restaurants had purified-water stations.

The third tip is that collapsible Tupperware is definitely underrated. Turns out it was great for carrying around snacks and grabbing food to go for when I was in a rush.

The last tool tip is you don’t always need tools. You can skip single use plastics without replacing them, by saying no to an airplane snack, skipping a sample at an ice cream shop, or asking for a cone instead of a cup.

Track 3.1

Track 3.1
Plastic. It’s everywhere, and it’s not going away.

It takes about 100 years for a plastic bag in the ocean to break down and disappear completely, and 450 years for a plastic bottle. Plastic is filling our oceans, and it’s killing the animals in it.

We use plastic all the time. But do we have to? And can we reduce the amount of plastic waste in the world? Yes, we can, but we have to follow three important rules.

First, we have to reduce. This is the most important rule. We have to buy and use fewer plastic things and stay away from plastic items we only use once, like straws and plastic bags.

Second, we have to reuse. Don’t throw away plastic yogurt containers—you can reuse them. They’re great for keeping leftover food, or for growing small plants.

And third, we have to recycle. When we can’t reuse plastic items, we have to recycle them. We can’t just throw them away with the rest of our trash. We have to separate them and put them in recycling bins.

There are many ways that we can use less plastic. In some places, stores aren’t allowed to give plastic bags to customers. They can only give paper or cloth bags that people can reuse.

Think about plastic, and how you can help make a difference. And tell your friends all about the plastic problem, too.

2025年10月15日星期三

Quiz 1

1. Yumiko wants a job that's rewarding.

2. Sara wants a job that pays well.

3. You enter information, and it recommends a job for you.

4. I want a job that allows me to work with computers.

5. It sounds a little boring.

6. What would you like to do?

7. I'd like a job that involves working with animals.

8. Maria would like to be a designer because she wants a job that allows her to be creative.

9. Wang trained very hard for many years.

10. Wearing a spacesuit and carrying heavy equipment, she walked.

11. Imagine how many potential medications you could find.

12. Being a snake researcher allows Takacs to travel to many remote places.

13. He was bitten by venomous snakes six times.

14. Sometimes it was so windy and dusty that we couldn't see each other.

15. Vets care for injured animals.

16. Astronauts are people who work in space.

17. Marine biologists study life in the ocean.

2.1

2.1
Max Lowe is a National Geographic Explorer. He travels the world and tells the stories of the people he meets through photographs. But how did Max become an explorer? And did he always want to be a photographer?

“No, a long time ago actually, I wanted to be an airplane pilot. But in high school, I started writing and taking lots of photos. That’s when I fell in love with photography. At that time, I wanted to become a journalist. When I graduated from high school, my parents gave me my first digital camera.”

Family is very important to Max.

“My father was my hero during my childhood. He died when I was 12 years old, but he continues to inspire me. My mother is also my hero. She is the one who introduced me to the outdoors. My mother re-married, so my adopted father is also my hero. He’s always very supportive of me.”

2025年9月24日星期三

1.2

1.2
“It’s a glimpse into the center of the Earth. It’s like listening to the heartbeat of the planet.”

This is Sam Cossman. He’s at the crater of an active volcano in the island nation of Vanuatu.

“All right, so let’s use the drone to…”

Sam Cossman is an explorer and filmmaker. He’s here to record the volcano in a way that’s never been done before. He’s using drones with cameras to capture amazing close-up footage of the volcano. The drones allow Sam to take thousands of great photographs. Sam uses these photos to create first-of-their-kind 3D models of the volcano, like this one. But things don’t always go perfectly. Because of the extreme heat above the volcano, many of the drones fall into the lava and get destroyed. Sam’s job is exciting, but it’s also dangerous. There are poisonous gases, and the heat is extreme—over 500 degrees Celsius!

Sam works closely with Jeffrey Marlow, a geo-biologist. Jeffrey is searching for life in the rocks near the volcano’s lava. The lava is way too hot for things to live in, but the rocks near the lava are cooler—below 120 degrees Celsius. Jeffrey is interested in the lifeforms that live in these hot rocks. By studying these tiny lifeforms, Jeffrey hopes to learn more about how life first formed on Earth. Sam’s cameras are very important in Jeffrey’s research. They allow Jeffrey to check his work more carefully. For example, he uses the footage to check exactly where he was when he collected a rock sample. Sam’s 3D models are also useful. They allow Jeffrey to study the different layers of the volcano in detail.

Sam believes that drone videos can be used in many other areas of research. He wants to bring together the worlds of exploration, video, and science to help push the limits of discovery farther.

2025年9月17日星期三

Extreme Jobs

A
Wang Yaping has a job that allows her to travel—all the way to space. Wang is an astronaut. In 2013, she became the second Chinese woman to travel to space. She is also famous for a physics class that she televised from space to more than 60 million people.

B
Wang trained very hard for many years to become an astronaut. The toughest part was desert training. Wearing a spacesuit and carrying heavy equipment, she walked several kilometers through the hot and sandy desert. “Sometimes it was so windy and dusty,” she says, “that we couldn’t see each other even though we were just a few meters away.”

C
Wang loves her job. She remembers watching the first Chinese astronaut go into space. “I was so proud and also very excited. But as I watched it, it occurred to me: We have male pilots and female pilots. And then a male astronaut. When will there be a female astronaut? And today, it’s me becoming one of the first few.”

D
Zoltan Takacs is a snake researcher. He first became interested in snakes when he was a teacher in Budapest, Hungary. Today, snakes are his career. He travels to many different countries around the world to study all kinds of dangerous snakes.

E
Takacs studies snake venom—the poison a snake produces to kill other animals. He hopes his research will help him discover new life-saving drugs. There are over 100,000 types of venomous animals in the world. “Imagine how many potential medications you could find,” he says.

F
Being a snake researcher allows Takacs to travel to many beautiful and remote places. But it is also dangerous. He has been bitten by venomous snakes six times, but has learned to be careful. “Explorers have to know their limits,” he says. “Then we can push those limits further.”

Video 1-1

1.1 My name is Jessica Cramp. I’m a marine biologist. I’m studying animals in the Galapagos Islands. A mola mola! Ha! There’s only one animal that can go so very deep to new unexplored places. We’re learning more about this area so that we can help to protect it.

There are many unique animals in the Galapagos Islands. “Oh, my gosh. Don’t stab us.” A mola mola swims like that. I’m here with a team from National Geographic. I met two amazing women. We’re probably the youngest all-woman submarine team in the world. We should set a goal of trying to find three new species. One for each of us. I’m very lucky. I have a job that I love, and that’s very exciting. I feel like a real explorer.