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Welcome! This site is for students to practice their English and keep up to date with environmental issues.

TEN MINUTES OF ENGLISH A DAY!
You can find a mixture of reading, crosswords, videos and short English lessons: these will normally be vocabulary, but I may also treat you to some grammar!

There are now over 260 lessons on this blog. Look through the Blog archive, Post labels and Popular Posts to find what you want.

If you want to print a lesson, click on the lesson title and then look for the Print Friendly icon.

''Let nature be your teacher''
William Wordsworth, poet, 1770-1850

''Joy in looking and comprehending is nature's most beautiful gift''
Albert Einstein, physicist, 1879-1955

''... to find the word, or words, by which [an] idea may be most fitly and aptly expressed''
P.M. Roget, lexicographer, 1779-1869

Tuesday 18 February 2014

How salmon help keep a rainforest alive

Level: Upper-intermediate / B2

Vocabulary practice

Please click the 'Print Friendly' icon at the bottom of the page if you want to print this exercise.

Another visit to the BBC's Power of Nature series. This video is called Salmon: Heart of the forest and it looks at how this fish helps the Great Bear Rainforest to survive.

Watch the video (four minutes long) and then answer the following questions:
1)  What does the forest do to the air and water?
2)  Which coast of Canada is the forest on?
3)  Why do the salmon swim up the rivers and creeks?
4)  Where do the bears eat the fish?
5)  How much of the nitrogen in the trees comes from the salmon?



Answers below!



ANSWERS!
1)  It cleanses the air; it stores and purifies water.
2)  The Pacific.
3)  To spawn (and then die).
4)  Deep in the forest.
5)  80%.

Thursday 13 February 2014

Vultures - nature's cleaners

Level: Upper-intermediate / B2

Vocabulary practice

Please click the 'Print Friendly' icon at the bottom of the page if you want to print this exercise.

Here is another great video from the BBC's Power of Nature series. Called Vulture: Earth's clean up crew it looks at the effects of the loss of vultures in India

The video (four minutes long) and the text with it have some interesting vocabulary.
What do the following words mean:
1)  scavenger
2)  purify
3)  soaring
4)  undertaker
5)  carcass
6)  livestock
7)  feral dog
8)  rabies
9)  rotting
10) extinction


Answers below!




ANSWERS!
The answers are taken from the Oxford on-line dictionary.

1)  scavenger
an animal that feeds on carrion, dead plant material, or refuse
2)  purify
remove contaminants from
3)  soaring
flying or rising high in the air
4)  undertaker
a person whose business is preparing dead bodies for burial or cremation and making arrangements for funerals
5)  carcass
the dead body of an animal
6)  livestock
farm animals regarded as an asset
7)  feral dog
in a wild state, especially after escape from captivity or domestication
8)  rabies
a contagious and fatal viral disease of dogs and other mammals, transmissible through the saliva to humans and causing madness and convulsions. Also called hydrophobia.
9)  rotting
the process of decaying
10) extinction
the state or process of being or becoming extinct
(extinct: (of a species, family, or other larger group) having no living members).