科技英语4Special English of VOA教学教案.pptVIP

Scientific English 4 Chen Shengbo Listening Pratice Special English of VOA EDUCATION REPORT - Schoolyard Habitats By Jerilyn Watson This is Steve Ember with the VOA Special English Education Report. Educational gardens called Schoolyard Habitats are growing at schools in almost every American state. To make a habitat, schoolchildren create a space for plants in their schoolyards. They put in plants that are inviting to birds and to insects called butterflies. Then they watch the birds, plants and insects as they grow and multiply（繁殖）. Teachers praise the habitats as valuable learning tools. To students in habitat programs, for example, photosynthesis（光合作用）is not just something to learn from a book. Children can study their own plants as the plants complete this process of combining water and carbon dioxide（二氧化碳）. They learn that plants can use light to make the energy that keeps the plant alive. Students in habitat programs can watch for and identify birds. They can learn about trees and flowers. They can build and operate weather stations and make mathematical records of weather activities. They can estimate the number of baby frogs in a water pond. They can write environment reports about the habitats in science class and write stories about them in English class. The National Wildlife Federation in Reston, Virginia, developed the Schoolyard Habitats program. It started in nineteen-ninety-six. At first, three-hundred-fifty-five schools developed habitats. Today, there are two-thousand Schoolyard Habitats in forty-nine of Americas fifty states. The Gowana Middle School in Clifton Park, New York, operates one of these habitats. It has beautiful flowers and bushes. A waterfall flows over rocks in a large pond. Bird-feeding stations are placed just outside classroom windows. Students can observe, identify and record sightings of birds from their classroom. From November through April, they share their records with scientists at the Cornell University Labs Cl