Active Skills for Reading 1 (Unit 11: Look into the Future)


CHAPTER 2 - Predicting Earthquakes

Real Life Skill - Doing Research on the Internet

Searching the Internet is an important skill. Even if you can't understand all the words on a website, your scanning skills can guide you to the information you want.

A. Read the following paragraph about predicting the weather.

Meteorologists, scientists that study weather patterns, often use high-tech instruments to predict the weather. But people have been making weather forecasts long before these instruments and methods were invented. They usually based their predictions on what they observed in the sky or the way animals behaved. They passed down their knowledge by making it into sayings that are easy for people to remember. These are called proverbs.

B. Read the following weather proverbs, then discuss their meanings with a partner.

When sea-gulls fly to land, a storm is at hand. Red sky at night, sailor's delight. Red sky in the morning, sailor take warning.
The higher the clouds the better the weather. When the night goes to bed with a fever, it will awake with a wet head.
When the forest murmurs and the mountain roars, then close your windows and shut your doors.

Answer

Answers may vary. The generally received meanings of the proverbs are: When sea-gulls fly to land, a storm is at hand: You can tell that there's going to be a storm if the seagulls fly toward dry land. Red sky at night, sailor’s delight Red sky in the morning, sailor take warning: Redness in the sky at night is a sign of good weather, but redness in the sky in the morning indicates that bad weather is coming. The higher the clouds the better the weather If the clouds are very high in the sky it means the weather is good (and the higher the better). When the night goes to bed with a fever, it will awake with a wet head: If it is very hot at night, it is likely to rain by morning. When the forest murmurs and the mountain roars, then close your windows and shut your doors: The movement and noise of animals in the mountains and forest is a sign of a storm or bad weather on its way.

C. Do an Internet search and find the meaning of the proverbs. Were you correct?

D. Now do an Internet search to find a few proverbs on one of the following topics. Explain their meanings to your partner.

food
friendship		 health
money

What do you think?

  1. Would you like to know what happens in your future? Why, or why not?
  2. Do you know of any. books or movies that are set in the future?. What was the future like?
  3. Where do you see yourself in 10, 20, and 50 years time?

Can Animals Predict Earthquakes?

Dear Scientist Sam,

I noticed my dog acting very nervous only a few minutes before a recent earthquake shook the house. Is it possible that my dog knew the earthquake was going to happen?
Janet

Sam's reply:

Well, Janet, people have believed for many centuries that animals can predict earthquakes. In fact, we can look back to records from the ancient Greeks. They noticed that animals acted oddly in the hours before earthquakes. Even now, people talk about dogs that won't stop barking and cats that won't come out of hiding before an earthquake. Furthermore, strange behavior like this before earthquakes isn't limited to pets. People have also reported seeing chickens stop laying eggs, bees leaving their homes, and big groups of fish dying mysteriously in the;hours before a natural disaster hits.

It's hard to answer your question, since not all seismologists1 or animal experts agree that animals can predict earthquakes. Those that disagree claim that we should take into account other things that affect animal behavior, such as hunger. On the other hand, many people who believe that animals can predict earthquakes often have records of very strange animal behavior right before_the ground shakes. To them, this is evidence that animals can indeed predict earthquakes.

In short, the truth is that we aren't sure. Animals might be able to sense earthquakes before they happen, but there is no solid evidence that they can. However, one thing that most seismologists can agree on is that more research is needed. Animals may be the key to predicting earthquakes before they happen, and could help save many lives.

1 A seismologist is a scientist who studies earthquakes and movements of the earth

Chapter - 2: Vocabulary Skill - The Suffixes -ness

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