Text 5 plants and nature

Plants and animals are organic nature. On the Earth plants make one third. Animals and man will not live without plants, because the cycle of nature links them. This natural process gives man and animals oxygen and food. The Sun gives energy for this process. Plants are special living things: they accumulate sunlight and make organic matter from inorganic in their leaves. Plants use sunlight and make their food; they give off oxygen into the air during this process. Man and animals breathe out carbon dioxide, which plants combine with sun energy, water and minerals from the soil and in this way make their food. After plants and animals die, rotting process will give back minerals to the soil, where plants will again use them.

Plants also play a very important part in conservation and protection of soil, water and animals. They protect soil from the wind and keep water in the soil.

Trees give off a lot of oxygen into the air. For example, a hectare of pine forest gives oxygen for ten people. It is necessary to have 1000 square kilometers of forest for ten million people. If there are many parks and trees in a city and many forests around it, then its population will have enough oxygen to breathe.

Words to remember:

1. to link – соединять, связывать

2. animal - животное

3. to give off - выделять

4. carbon dioxide – углекислый газ

5. rotting process – процесс гниения

6. forest – лес

7. population – население

8. enough – достаточно

Exercise 1. Answer the questions:

1. Could animals and man live without plants?

2. What links them?

3. What do plants accumulate?

4. What do plants give off?

5. What do man and animals breathe out?

6. How do plants make their food?

Text 6 plants, climate and weather

Weather is the effect of four forces. They are temperature or heat, moisture or water in the air, wind or air movement and pressure of air. These four factors act together and make weather, although all weather is the result of the action of the Sun, because heat comes from the Sun.

Climate is unchanging weather. During the years the climate in this or that area is more or less the same. For example, the climate of much of northern and central Africa is hot and dry. Much of Southeast Asia is hot and wet. The North and South Poles have cold climates. We think of the climate of these regions as never changing. But there is proof that the climate changes in the long run.

Annual tree rings prove it. Every year a tree grows at least a little. If there is much rain and a long summer, the tree produces a new light line. In cold or dry years the tree doesn’t grow much and its ring is a thin dark line. There are some very old trees that show that there have been some climatic changes.

The pine trees that grow in the White Mountains of California are some of the oldest living things on Earth. The scientists who study the age of trees from their annual rings have found one 4800 years old tree. This tree is still living and is quite good. Comparing the rings of an older dead tree, the scientists have found out what the climate has been for the last 9000 years.

There are places where dead trees have become stones. The rings of these trees can be studied too. So, scientists know now that the climate really changes but it takes a very long time.

Words to remember:

1. heat – тепло

2. moisture – влага

3. wind – ветер

4. although – хотя

5. annual ring – годичный слой

6. to prove – доказывать

7. pine tree – сосна

8. age – возраст

9. scientist – учёный

10. stone – камень

Exercise 1. Answer the questions:

1. What factors form the weather?

2. Where does heat come from?

3. What is climate?

4. What climate is there in your region?

5. What do annual rings prove?

6. Does a tree grow much during cold years?

7. Does the climate changes?

Exercise 2. Choose the proper word. Read and translate the sentence.

1. Temperature, moisture, wind and pressure of air are factors that make (heat, weather, region).

2. The climate of Africa is (hot, cold, mild).

3. Annual tree rings prove that climate (moves, grows, changes).

4. Every year a tree (grows, changes, shows) at least a little.

5. There are places where ( big, annual, dead) trees have become stones.

Exercise 3. Read, translate and learn the following sayings.

1. Some people walk in the rain, others just get wet. (Roger Miller)

2. Weather is a great metaphor for life – sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad, and there’s nothing much you can do about it but carry an umbrella. (Pepper Giardino)

3. The trouble with weather forecasting is that it’s right too often for us to ignore it and wrong too often for us to rely on it. (Patrick Young)

4. Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather. (John Ruskin)