Unit 12

Unit 12 Page 110 READING Exercise 3 Saving great discoveries! Many places discovered by explorers in past centuries are now in danger of disappearing, and many have already disappeared. Sadly, forests, lakes, glaciers and ancient ruins are gradually being destroyed by global warming and man-made disasters. What can we do to save them? The Chacaltaya Glacier 5,300 m up in the Andes STATUS: disappeared The Chacaltaya Glacier in the Andes was once the highest ski run in the world. The summit was in fact higher than the base camp at Mount Everest. The glacier, which is believed to be 18,000 years old, was 0.22 km² in length in 1940. It shrank to 0.08 km² in 1996, before finally disappearing completely in 2005. So why did it disappear? The answer is climate change. Scientists predicted that it would disappear in 2015. In fact, it melted a lot more quickly. Climate change is destroying other glaciers, too. In Iceland, it is believed scientists have found a solution. They inject carbon dioxide into rock. The carbon dioxide gas then turns to rock, too. This helps to stop temperatures rising and the ice melting. The Mirador Basin and Tikal National Park Forest home to Mayan ruins in Guatemala STATUS: losing 100,000 acres of forest a year The Mirador Basin and Tikal National Park in Guatemala are home to the amazing pyramids and ruins of the Mayan civilization. In 1881, the explorer Sir Alfred Maudslay took the first photos of the ancient Mayan city. Nowadays, the area is said to be losing 100,000 acres of forest a year. It's being burnt for farms. One solution to this is to ask villagers to help protect the land. The Nazca Lines Ancient chalk drawings in Peru STATUS: in danger of disappearing The Peruvian archaeologist Toribio Mejia Xesspe was the first to study the Nazca Lines. He discovered them while he was exploring the area, in 1927. These ancient chalk drawings show more than a hundred different figures, including flowers, animals and humans, and are the oldest of their kind in the world. The largest figures stretch more than 200 metres across. It is believed that they date back to a time between 500 BCE and 500 CE. In recent years, however, tourism has brought litter and vandalism. To help protect the Nazca lines, barriers could be built on the road that runs through them. This would protect the drawings from cars and trucks which sometimes drive onto them. The Dead Sea A salt-water lake in Jordan STATUS: 24 metres shallower than 40 years ago The Dead Sea Scrolls are very important pieces of writing discovered in the area around the Dead Sea. Sadly, the Dead Sea has decreased in size by a third in the past 40-45 years, and it is known to have sunk over 24 metres since the 1980s. If countries around the sea continue to use water from the River Jordan, it is thought that the sea will not exist in 50 years' time. Action must be taken now to change the way people use the water from the River Jordan so that we can save this beautiful salt lake.

Page 113 LISTENING Exercise 8 & 9 Well, good morning everyone. My name's Maggie Wilson and I'm from an organisation called The Species Finders. I'm here today to talk to you about a few of the new species of animals and insects we've only recently discovered. Now, I don't know about you, but a lot of people think that we already know about all the animals, birds, fish and insects on this planet. But in fact that's simply not true. We're finding new species all the time. So the first species I'd like to tell you about today is the American Pocket shark. It's very cute! It was discovered in the Gulf of Mexico. It was caught in 2010 but it wasn't described as a new species until 2015. Now, it's very rare, only one or two of these sharks have ever been seen. Why do you think it's called a pocket shark? It's not in fact because it's tiny and only 14cm in length. It's because it has a pocket-like feature just near the fins below its head. Isn't that adorable? My next species is small and furry. For the first time in 80 years, a new rat species has been found in the South Pacific. In 2010, Tyrone Lavery heard rumours about a giant rat that could crack coconuts. It lived in the trees on Vangunu Island. There were even songs and children's rhymes about these rats. But Lavery couldn't find it. Then, in 2015, a ranger caught one of the rats as it ran out of a tree which was cut down. "As soon as I examined it, I knew it was different," Lavery said. It was indeed a new species. The next new species is this cute gibbon which was discovered in the forests of the Gaoligong mountains in southwest Asia. It's been named after the famous Star Wars character, Luke Skywalker. This is because of the gibbon's high treetop home and the mysticism surrounding it in Chinese history. The Skywalker gibbons' eyebrows are thinner and farther apart, and the shape of their skulls and teeth are different from other hoolock gibbons. Sadly, although it has just been found, the Skywalker is already on the list of endangered species. My final new species today, is a very eye-catching yellow and green frog that was discovered recently in Ecuador's cloud forests. According to a new study, it is a new species of rainfrog. Ecuador is home to 570 frog species. It's really beautiful. It too is already considered to be endangered. So, the good news is that we're finding new species all the time. We don't know how many more species are still out there. What we do know is that more will be found. What's not so good, of course, is that all these animals are endangered. Their habitat, that is the places where they live, is being destroyed rapidly, and it is human beings who are doing this. If we don't act now to stop habitats being destroyed, many animals will disappear and future generations will only see them in books. I think it's vital for humans to find ways to live well and without harming other living creatures, don't you? Page 113 FUNCTIONS Exercise 10 '... all these animals are endangered. Their habitat, that is the places where they live, is being destroyed rapidly, and it is human beings who are doing this. If we don't act now, to stop habitats being destroyed, many animals will disappear and future generations will only see them in books. I think it's vital for humans to find ways to live well and without harming other living creatures, don't you? Page 113 PRONUNCIATION Exercise 1 & 2 1 We're off on our adventure on Saturday. 2 We're going far away to explore amazing places. 3 We hope to learn more about our incredible Earth. 4 We'll remember our adventure for ever! 5 Join us on our adventure – follow our excellent blog! Page 113 PRONUNCIATION Exercise 3 1 We're off on our adventure on Saturday. 2 We're going far away to explore amazing places. 3 We hope to learn more about our incredible Earth. 4 We'll remember our adventure for ever! 5 Join us on our adventure – follow our excellent blog!

Page 114 READING Exercise 3 EXPLORERS Almost every country on our planet has been explored and mapped and all of these have roads, railways and lines of communication. So it can be hard for us to imagine the people who went there without all the infrastructure that we now take for granted. This series celebrates the men and women who opened the world up and risked their lives to protect the people and environments they discovered along the way. This week, we profile a man not well-known outside his own country and continent – Candido Rondon. A FRIEND TO NATIVE PEOPLE CANDIDO RONDON In 1865, in a small village in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil, a boy was born. His father was of Portuguese ancestry and his mother was a native Brazilian. Who could have known that his origins would play such a big part in helping to connect so many cultures in very real and visible ways? He decided to join the army as an engineer and when he was only 25, he was involved in the building of a road from Rio de Janeiro to Cuiabá, a journey that previously could only be made by boat. He was later given the monumental task of placing telegraph lines from Brazil to Bolivia and Peru. This was a difficult job through rough and unexplored terrain, so it required a skilled engineer. Rondon opened paths through uncharted territory, and he came into contact with the Bororo, a tribe he had family connections with on his mother's side. Rondon established a friendly and respectful relationship with the Bororo people, and the telegraph lines were completed with their help. Next, Rondon was given the job of extending the telegraph system from Mato Grosso to the Amazon. This time he came across and made friends with the Nambikwara, previously thought of as a timid but hostile tribe. Rondon got to know many tribes during his expeditions, and he was a great friend to them. He was disturbed and ashamed to learn about the terrible way that they were often treated by outsiders. He fought long and hard to protect them and their right to follow their own beliefs, traditions and customs. However, some people still considered him an outsider. During his expeditions in Amazonia, Rondon was attacked several times, and once he was wounded by an arrow. Other members of the expedition wanted to take revenge on the native people who had attacked them, but Rondon said, 'Die if necessary, but never kill.' Years later, Rondon set up Brazil's Indian Protection Service, an agency to safeguard the interests and support the cultures of native peoples. Rondon's famous words became its motto. Rondon died in 1958 and is remembered as a hero in Brazil. A state in Brazil (Rondonia) was named after him, as well as the airport in Cuiabá and several roads. Next week: Abel Tasman

Page 116 Literature Exercise 3 The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle (1912) Professor George Challenger and his friend Lord John Roxton, together with a reporter and some local guides (one of whom is called Gomez), travel up the Amazon River to find a plateau. Challenger claims he has visited the plateau before, and that there are prehistoric creatures living there. Also with them is another professor who dislikes Challenger and doesn't believe his claims. The reporter narrates the story. The very next day we did actually make our start upon this remarkable expedition. We found that all our possessions fitted very easily into the two canoes, and we divided our personnel, six in each, taking the obvious precaution, in the interests of peace, of putting one professor into each canoe. [...] At dawn and at sunset the monkeys screamed together and the parrots started making their high-pitched noise, but during the hot hours of the day only the loud noise of insects, like the beat of a distant surf, filled the ear, while nothing moved amongst the solemn views of huge tree-trunks, fading away into the darkness which held us in. Once some creature, an ant-eater or a bear, walked clumsily amid the shadows. It was the only sign of life which I had seen in this great Amazonian forest. And yet there were indications that even human life itself was not far from us in those mysterious dark corners. On the third day out, we were aware of a strange, deep, rhythmic beat in the air, coming and going on-and-off throughout the morning. The two boats were moving within a few yards of each other when we first heard it, and our guides remained motionless, as if they had been turned to bronze, listening intently with expressions of terror upon their faces. 'What is it, then?' I asked. 'Drums,' said Lord John, carelessly, 'war drums. I have heard them before.' 'Yes, sir, war drums,' said Gomez. 'Native people, aggressive, not friendly; they watch us every mile of the way; kill us if they can. ' 'How can they watch us?' I asked, gazing into the dark. Gomez shrugged his broad shoulders. 'The native people know. They have their own way. They watch us. They talk the drum talk to each other. Kill us if they can.' By the afternoon of that day – my pocket diary shows me that it was Tuesday, August 18th – at least six or seven drums were beating from various points. Sometimes they beat quickly, sometimes slowly, sometimes in obvious question and answer, one far to the east breaking out in a high-pitched beat, and being followed after a pause by a deep roll from the north. There was something incredibly nerve-shaking and threatening in that constant noise, which seemed to shape itself into the words that Gomez used and endlessly repeated them: 'We will kill you if we can. We will kill you if we can.' No one ever moved in the silent woods. All the peace of quiet nature lay in that dark curtain of vegetation, but away from behind, there always came the one message from our fellow-man: 'We will kill you if we can,' said the men in the east. 'We will kill you if we can,' said the men in the north. [...] That night we tied our canoes with heavy stones for anchors in the centre of the stream, and made every preparation for a possible attack. Nothing came, however, and with the dawn we pushed upon our way, the drum-beating dying out behind us.

Unit 11 & 12 Page 118 CAMBRIDGE ENGLISH B2 First for Schools LISTENING Part 2 Exercise 1 You will hear a woman called Frances Williams talking about her work as an oceanographer. For questions 1-10, complete the sentences with a word or a short phrase. Thanks for the invitation to talk to you today. I'm a geological oceanographer, and when I mention this to people I usually see that they have no idea what it entails. So first, let me give you a brief introduction to the field of oceanography. As the name suggests, it's the science of studying the world's oceans. This is of huge importance given the challenges the world faces because of rising sea temperatures caused by climate change. Oceanographers are doing essential research in order to find solutions to this problem. There are many different types of oceanographers. Marine biologists look into the effect of changing conditions on plants and all types of fish and other sea creatures and they collect data about them. Because of course it's not just humans that are being affected by climate change. There are a number of shark species that are in danger of becoming extinct – to give just one example. Then we have chemical oceanographers. They look into the ways in which pollution is having an effect on the chemistry of the ocean waters. They also study the critical role the ocean plays in regulating the earth's climate by removing carbon from the atmosphere and providing oxygen. And they might be involved in exploring what kind of materials found in oceans could be used in the development of medicines. Physical oceanographers, in turn, do research into all kinds of physical movements of the oceans, including waves, currents and tides and how these movements affect coastlines. For example, how sand is transported by the sea on and off the coast. And last but not least, there are geological oceanographers, like me. What we do research into is the ocean floor and how its mountains and valleys were formed. My particular area of expertise is in the study of unders sea volcanic activity. I've always found this really fascinating. There are lots of new discoveries being made all the time. A recent study mapped about 20% of the sea floor of the Pacific Ocean, which led to the discovery of several new species. But 95% of the world's ocean floors are still to be explored – which is really exciting. It's only recently that we've had the technology to explore the deepest parts of the ocean, such as the so-called Challenger Deep, a place that is almost 11,000 metres under the sea. It's significantly deeper than the height of the highest mountain, Mount Everest, which is about 9,000 metres. People always thought that the deepest parts of the oceans were totally silent. Well, in our research we have found that the opposite is the case. With the help of microphones that are fixed to special submarines that can go to these depths we have recorded high volume sounds. These sounds are evidence of the enormous amounts of energy there are at work down there – there are rumbling sea-quakes, the equivalent of earthquakes as we know them, and extremely violent currents that have a similar effect on the seafloor that extreme winds such as hurricanes or tornadoes have on the surface of our planet.