节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2013-05-15
难易度:Low
关键字:pop out, reduce, species, creature, fungus, puddle
Hello, and welcome to Studio Classroom.
My name is Gabe.
And I'm Carolyn.
And thank you for joining us here today.
We're going to be talking about a very interesting creature, a tiny little
animal called a springtail.
Now if you have your magazine, I hope you have it open to page 26 because you
can see how small these things really are.
What is the smallest animal that you have ever seen?
What's the smallest creature that you've seen with your eyes?
Carolyn?
Well, probably a flea... Actually, no. I have seen a very tiny red spider.
What?
It is smaller than a flea, and I don't know what it's called.
But occasionally I see them.
And I only know they're there because they're bright red.
And I see this little tiny red dot just moving along.
Interesting, a tiny little spider.
That sounds a little better than a flea.
I think fleas are the tiniest animals I have ever seen.
I have a cat.
And it got fleas once.
I did not like seeing those things jumping around.
Well, today we're going to be talking about something not as bad as fleas,
actually they're quite interesting - springtails.
So let's spring right into the lesson.
(Music).
Springtails.
These tiny animals are one of nature's greatest success stories.
Springtails get their name from their ability to, well, spring.
When they are disturbed, their tails pop out very quickly.
This action sends them springing as high as 100 millimeters into the air.
That's amazing since most are only a few millimeters long!
Besides jumping, springtails have another special ability.
They make the soil cleaner because they eat fungus and dead plant material.
Their eating habits help reduce the levels of bad chemicals in the soil.
With more than 6,000 different species, springtails come in many shapes, sizes
and colors.
Very interesting creatures, indeed.
Well, our lesson begins with a sentence: These tiny animals are one of nature's
greatest success stories.
We're going to be learning all about why in the lesson, why are they nature's
greatest success stories.
We'll find out later.
But I want to spend some time with Steve and Ken in the Information Cloud to
talk a little bit more about nature.
Here we go.
Hi, friends.
Let's pause and ponder "nature" for a minute.
What it is nature exactly?
Well, nature has several definitions.
It can refer to the natural physical world, or less-than-perfect human behavior.
But in addition to asking what is nature, we might also want to ask who is
nature.
Ah, you must be referring to Mother Nature.
We often hear about her on TV when weather men talk about the weather.
Mother Nature unleashed her wrath today when tornadoes tore their way across the
county.
Hmm. Or Mother Nature smiled on us today with this warm weather.
This is an example of personification, which is giving human traits to
non-living things.
Nature is non-living.
But calling it Mother Nature is giving it a human quality.
Now there is another word that sounds a lot like nature - the word nurture.
And there's the age old debate about nature versus nurture.
Child psychologists like to debate whether nature or nurture plays a bigger role
in a child's development.
I remember studying that in college.
People who subscribe to the nature theory believe that children are born to
behave a certain way.
How they behave is inside them already.
That's right, Ken.
But the nurture theory maintains that children think and behave only according
to how they are raised and taught.
(Chinese).
In the first sentence here we see: Springtails get their name from their ability
to, well, spring.
So springtails can spring.
That's a very interesting thing for them to do.
If it springs, then it jumps.
It jumps up very quickly usually.
And this is a very interesting sentence as far as grammar goes.
And I think Liz has something she wants to share with us in the Grammar Gym.
Hi, friends.
I hope you're all doing well today.
My name is Liz.
And thanks for joining me here at the Grammar Gym.
And here's our Grammar Tip sentence for today.
Springtails get their name from their ability to, well, spring.
Our focus today is on the word "well." We normally use it to talk about how
something is done, like:
That was a job well done!
But in today's sentence, "well" is a filler.
Fillers are used to give the speaker time to think about an explanation.
When you hear a speech, you might hear "well" used several times.
So why do we see the word "well" in today's article?
The writer starts out by trying to explain how springtails get their name, and
he wants to give readers the feeling that he is talking to them.
So he just writes out the word "well" into the sentence.
This is a good example of creative writing.
Here are more sentences:
Why did you do that?
Well, I wasn't paying attention.
Or: Do we all have to clean the kitchen?
Well, you could take the trash out.
So next time when you need to pause and think of something to say, try using
"well" instead.
And that's it for today.
This is Liz from the Grammar Gym.
See you next time.
Well, thank you, Liz.
Anyway, we were talking about springtails, and they can spring.
We find out more here.
When they are disturbed, their tails pop out very quickly.
Well, I don't like being disturbed.
Maybe if I was a springtail, my tail would pop out very quickly as well.
Carolyn, do you like being disturbed?
I do not.
If you're disturbed, that means that something is bothering you.
Maybe you bump into someone, and it disturbs the other person.
You have to be careful.
But here we see this phrase "pop out," and it's from our Word Bank.
If something pops out, then it appears suddenly.
It wasn't there before, and then it's there.
So here when springtails are disturbed, their tails - you can't see them - and
then they pop out and they spring away.
That's right.
Well, I have a friend who works as a grocer.
She sells things.
Sometimes the cash register, the drawer, pops out when she doesn't expect.
So different things can pop out.
Usually it happens when... when you don't expect it, or it happens quickly.
Well, we continue learning about the springtail and this popping out.
This action sends them springing as high as 100 millimeters into the air.
One hundred millimeters.
Let's see, it's about like that.
I... I can do 100 millimeters with my fingers like this.
That's really not that far for me, Carolyn.
Oh. But this is very amazing actually.
We see: That's amazing since most are only a few millimeters long.
So they're only one or two millimeters to begin with, and they are jumping 100
millimeters.
So that's quite a big difference between their size and how far they can jump.
It's true.
But I don't think that humans are going to be able to do that just simply by
ourselves anytime soon.
Well, these springtails are quite interesting.
We find out more about them.
Besides jumping, springtails have another special ability, another special thing
that they can do, that they're able to do.
What is this, Carolyn?
Well, they make the soil cleaner.
They eat fungus.
So they make the soil cleaner because they eat fungus and dead plant material.
So they're eating things that have already died, these decaying plants.
And it helps to clean up the area around them.
That's true.
And of course, a fungus is a kind of plant.
Actually, a lot of mushrooms, most mushrooms are types of fungus.
You might call them fungi, for plural.
Anyway, we continue with our lesson.
Their eating habits help reduce the levels of bad chemicals in the soil.
Let's take a look at that key word there.
It is "reduce." When you reduce something, that means you make it less than it
was before.
So how might you use that word, Carolyn?
Well, a lot of times we think about reducing the amount of things we need to
throw away.
We should try to use things again or recycle them so we can reduce the amount of
trash that we have.
Or maybe you can reduce the amount of junk food in your diet so that you're
eating a little more healthfully.
You reduce these things.
You make them less.
So springtails are actually very helpful.
Well, how do we continue, Carolyn?
We see: With more than 6,000 different species, springtails come in many shapes,
sizes and colors.
More than 6,000 different species, Gabe.
What is this species?
Oh, species.
Of course the world is full of thousands, if not millions, of different kinds of
species of animals and plants and different things.
And of course, human beings are a certain kind of species.
So if you look at the springtail, and you study it, you'll find out that there
are more than 6,000 different species of these things.
That's right.
So there are more than 6,000 different types or kinds of springtails.
And they come in many different colors and sizes and even shapes.
So they are very unique creature with a very diverse type of population.
Well, now it's time for us to go see Michelle in the Language Lab.
Hi, everyone. I'm Michelle.