Tasks for 'Effects of Pollution' Article

Hi and good day fellow students,

In my previous post, I had asked you all to search for the definitions of the ten words in the suggested online dictionaries so that you could comprehend the article better. I have also not given you the tasks to do based on the article yet. So, today, I am going to list down the tasks which you need to do based on the previous article.

Your answers for these questions must be posted in your individual blogs.

1) Based on your understanding of the ten vocabularies in the previous article, please write ONE sentence for each of the word.

2) Please answer the comprehension questions as follow :

a) What is pollution long known for?

b) What does WWF say about marine pollution?

c) How does fertilizer runoff contribute in polluting the nature?

d) How many tonnes of chemical warfare agents were dumped in oceans from 1946 to 1965?

e) What is the result of marine pollution gathered by ocean currents drawing in garbage from far away places?

Please post your answers in your individual blogs before 12.00pm, 24 April 2011.

Good luck and no copying from friends, alright!

Effects of Pollution

Hi and good day students!

Before moving on to our next online lesson, I want you all to look at these two pictures below. WHICH KIND OF OCEAN DO WISH TO GO TO? The one depicted in the first picture or the second picture?

VERSUS

I am pretty sure that everyone prefers going to a beautiful and uncontaminated ocean like in the first picture, and nobody would want to enjoy going to a contaminated ocean like in the second picture! Do you know that the contamination is done by us, HUMANS? 

Below is a picture of proof to show how contamination affects animals and the nature as a whole :

A baby albatross has died from eating plastics for it had mistaken trash and plastics floating on the sea as food. This is one of the effects of human-made contamination

In order to enlighten you all with this issue, let's read the article below and try to comprehend it.

The ten (10) words in bold are vocabularies which might hinder your thorough understanding of this article IF you do not understand any of them. So, your first task is, while you are reading the article below, please refer the definitions of the words in any of these suggested online dictionaries below:

Cambridge Dictionary

Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary

MSN Encarta Dictionary

In the article below, there is also a video attached in order to make you all better understand about the subject matter. Do enjoy your reading (and watching) while increasing your awareness, students!

Effects of Pollution by Anup Shah

Pollution (land and marine) are long known to have negative impacts on wildlife and the environment.

From industrial and agricultural run-offs to household waste and more can end up far from the source, causing problems for people and the environment, even as far as the arctic, as the video from WWF notes.

The WWF also says over 80% of marine pollution comes from land-based activities and that “a staggering amount of waste, much of which has only existed for the past 50 years or so, enters the oceans each year.”

Examples of waste produced on land ending up in the oceans that the WWF lists include:

• Oil
• Fertilizer
• Solid garbage
• Sewage disposal
• Toxic man-made chemicals

The WWF also notes that more oil pollution comes from land than from oil spills, while fertilizer runoff contributes to various oceanic dead zones around the world. The solid garbage includes plastic bags, bottles, packaging, etc. Sewage disposal is often untreated and toxic chemicals contaminate almost every marine organism, from the tiniest to the largest.

Inter Press Service adds that military debris also threaten coral ecosystems, reefs, fish and marine wildlife:

“The U.S. Army dumped over 8,000 tonnes of chemical weapons off Hawaii,” said Paul Walker, director of Global Green, at the recently concluded Fifth U.N. International Marine Debris Clearance conference in Hawaii. Around 300,000 tonnes of chemical warfare agents were dumped in oceans from 1946 to 1965. Upwards of 400,000 gas filled-bombs and rockets float in U.S. waters. 40,000 tonnes of Conventional Weapons (CW) are in the Baltic Sea. 21,000 tonnes of CW agents float in Australian waters, and more than 6,600 tonnes off the coast of Japan.

— Malini Shankar, Environment: Military Debris Threaten Oceans, Inter Press Service, April 14, 2011

In the North Pacific Ocean, is a great gyre (a great ocean current) of marine litter known as The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, formed as a result of marine pollution gathered by ocean currents drawing in garbage from far away places such as Japan and North America. Some types of plastics and other garbage from this gyre has ended up in the stomachs of marine animals and birds, including sea turtles and albatross birds.

Greenpeace says that at least 267 different species are known to have suffered from entanglement or ingestion of marine debris including seabirds, turtles, seals, sea lions, whales and fish. Some of these species are found in the North Pacific Gyre.

The UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme) also notes that marine litter poses a growing threat to marine and coastal development and that “most marine litter consists of material that degrades slowly, if at all, so a continuous input of large quantities of these items results in a gradual build-up in the marine and coastal environment.”

Source : http://www.globalissues.org/print/article/177

Finished reading? Keep yourselves updated with your next task for this article!

Robots, robots, robots!

Hi and good day fellow students,

In my previous post, I have provided you all a note regarding WH question words and asked you to thoroughly understand on how to use each one of the question word given. So, have you all mastered it? Hopefully you have! That is because, today, I will give you a very interesting task to do in which besides practicing your comprehension of those WH question words, I will also give you all a chance to IMAGINE and EXPRESS YOUR CREATIVITY! 

Before I inform you all the task, let's take a look at the pictures below : 

Yes, your task today has to closely deal with ROBOTS. What I need you to do now is,

1) Take an A4 paper and draw your own imaginative robot which you want to 'invent'.

2) In order to come out with your very own robot, make sure that the robot has the characteristics that match your answers for questions that I am going to provide you below. The questions are :

     a) What are the capabilities of your robot?

     b) When will you use the robot? (e.g. : meal time, vacation, etc.)

     c) Which functions of the robot that you like most?

     d) Why do you think this robot is going to be a great one?

3) After you finished drawing the robot, please scan your drawing and upload it into your individual blog.  If you do not have computer and/or scanner, please go to our school Language Laboratory and do it there.

4) Below your robot drawing in the blog, please write the answers of the questions above.

Please finish this task before 12.00pm, 22 April 2011. 

You can be as creative as you want. Express your creativity, my dear students!

Good luck!

WH Question Words

Today, we are going to continue with our next lesson which is about WH question words. Basically, WH question words are words that start with the letters WH which are used to ask questions to others. Let's take a look at the table below :

Question Word	Function	Example
what	asking for information about something	What is your name?
	asking for repetition or confirmation	What? I can't hear you. You did what?
what...for	asking for a reason, asking why	What did you do that for?
when	asking about time	When did he leave?
where	asking in or at what place or position	Where do they live?
which	asking about choice	Which colour do you want?
who	asking what or which person or people (subject)	Who opened the door?
whom	asking what or which person or people (object)	Whom did you see?
whose	asking about ownership	Whose are these keys? Whose turn is it?
why	asking for reason, asking what...for	Why do you say that?

Source : http://www.englishclub.com/vocabulary/wh-question-words.htm

As you all can see, these words (what, what for, when, where, which, who, whom, whose and why) are used in posing questions to others. Read the note above thoroughly and try to comprehend it because I am  going to give you a task to do in my next post.

Happy reading my dear students! 

Video Blog a.k.a Vlog

Hi students,

The first thing that you all need to do now is to get the novel "The Boscombe Valley Mystery".

Choose one character which you think you can act out his/her characteristics well. What you have to do is, using your computer and webcam, please record a video of you acting the characteristics OR the scene(s) that could portray the characteristics of that particular character that you choose.

An example of video which you can do :

If you do not have computer and/or webcam, you can always go to our school language laboratory and ask for the permission to use the facilities. Should you need any extra characters to help you out, you can always ask your friends to do you the favour.

After you have finished recording your video, do UPLOAD it in you individual blog. 

I will watch and assess all videos and choose the best three. A special treat awaits those three, so do your best, beloved students!

Please upload your video before 12.00pm, 19 April 2011. 

All the best! 

Michael Jackson and Charles McCarthy : Any Similarity?

Hi and good day, fellow students. How have you all been doing? I am sorry that I could not go to school last Friday (15 April 2011) because I had to attend a meeting in Pahang. Since we are approaching our mid term examination this May, I think there is not much time left for us to finish up our syllabus. That is why I came out with this blog so that all of you can get access to our lessons whenever I cannot afford to be around.

This is going to be our very first online lesson. For this first online lesson, let's us start with watching the video below.

I am pretty sure that you all could recognize the singer in the video above, am I right? He is the late Michael Jackson, the pop legend. 

Do you all still remember that I asked you to read the novel "The Boscombe Valley Mystery" last week? By now, all of you should have read the novel, and Charles McCarthy is one of the characteristics in the novel.

The similarity between Michael Jackson's death and Charles McCarthy's death is that, their deaths are MYSTERIOUS.

Do you all agree if I say one of Charles McCarthy's characteristics is that his death is mysterious?

I will inform you your tasks in my next post. Hopefully you all could get the hint of what we are going to do next through this post. Keep yourselves updated, alright!