Unit 2 Working the Land Warming Up

What are the family doing?

Poem By Li Shen Farmers weeding at noon, Sweat down the field soon. Who knows food on a tray, Due to their toiling day.

Warming Up Questions: 1. Have you ever grown any plants? If so, what did you do to grow them? If not, what kind of plant would you like to grow? How will you grow it? 2. Have you ever been to the countryside? What did you do there? 3. Are you from a farmer’s family? What do you know about farming?

Growing Rice

terraced fields

Pre-reading and talking Questions: 1. Rice is a main food in all East Asian and Southeast Asian countries. What do you think would happen if tomorrow there was suddenly no rice to eat? Tips: It is said that there are 2.4 billion people to eat rice every day throughout the world ； suffer from starvation/die of hunger; panic, get into trouble

International Facts on Hunger and Poverty( 贫穷 )  Every eight seconds, a child somewhere in the world dies from starvation. More than 6 million children under the age of 5 die from starvation every year.  More than 800 million people in the world suffer from chronic malnutrition( 长期营养不良 )—799 million of them are from the developing world. More than 153 million of them are under the age of 5.  Some700,000 Central Americans are suffering from hunger today, including 6,000 children at risk of starving to death.  The African countries suffering most severely from food shortage are Malawi, Lesotho, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

2. If you had the chance to help end hunger in the world, what would you do? 3. Do you know who Yuan Longping is ?

Reading 袁隆平 A PIONEER FOR ALL PEOPLE

A brief introduction: Yuan Longping is known as China ’ s “ father of hybrid rice ”. It ’ s said that in China, we eat depending on “ Two Ping ” ---- Deng Xiaoping, who made the policy of System of Production Responsibility, & Yuan Longping, who invented hybrid rice. Yuan Longping, who was born in September, 1930, graduated from Agriculture Department in Southwest Agricultural Institute. He has been working on agriculture education & the research into hybrid rice since he left the institute. In the 1960s, when China was suffering from serious famine, he came up with the idea of hybrid rice, which has a high yield ( or output). Ten years later, he succeeded in inventing a new species that produced a 20 percent higher yield than common types of rice. Yuan devoted himself to the research into agriculture, & was honored by UNESCO & FAO( 联合国教科文组织）. Although he is 74 years old, he is still working on the research into agriculture.

袁隆平被誉为中国的 “ 杂交水稻之父 ”. 中国农民说， 吃饭靠 “ 两平 ” ，一靠邓小平 ---- 制定了生产承包责任制 的政策，二靠袁隆平 ---- 发明了杂交稻。 袁隆平，男，１９３０年９月出生于北京，１９ ５３年毕业于西南农学院农学系。毕业后，一直从事 农业教育及杂交水稻研究。 在中国人民正闹饥荒的 20 世纪 60 年代，袁隆平提 出了杂交水稻的概念，这种新型水稻具有高产量的特 点。 10 年后，他研制成功了一种产量比一般水稻高出 20% 的新型水稻。 袁隆平一生献身于农业研究，先后受到联合国教 科文组织、粮农组织的称誉。袁隆平虽已年届７０岁， 仍然一如既往地从事农业研究。 袁隆平人物简历 writing hybrid rice; System of Production ; responsibil- ity; institute; suffer from famine; UNESCO, FAO.

Homework Pronounce the new words of this unit correctly Getting ready for the reading passage --a pioneer for all people