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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

Thursday 24 October 2019

From the Olympics to a climate change activist

Level: Intermediate / B1


Please click the 'Print Friendly' icon at the bottom of the page if you want to print this exercise.
The Balkans is one of the last parts of Europe with free-flowing rivers. But they are under threat from dams.
Watch this short video (3 minutes) about it and answer the following questions, which focus on numbers.

1) How far did Rok Rozman kayak?
2) How many of the world's rivers remain free-flowing?
3) How long has Rok been working to set up the river movement?
4) How many dams has Balkan River Defence helped to stop?
5) How many hydropower projects have been proposed for the rivers in the region?

Bonus question - what is the highest mountain in the Balkans? How high is it? (you will have to do a bit of extra research for this one!)

Answers below!





1) 390 km (three hundred and ninety kilometres)
2) A third (or 'one-third')
3) Four years
4) More than seven
5) 3000 (three thousand)

Bonus question: Rila 2925 m (two thousand nine hundred and twenty five metres)