1. Unit 2
Working the Land
Warming up

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

3. Do you know these grains (谷物)?
sorghum
wheat 高粱
rice

4. corn
soybean 大豆
peanut
cotton

5. Are you from a farmer’s family? What do you know about farming?

6. 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?

7. farming steps plough the soil turn over the soil select the seeds
sow the seeds
remove the weeds
fertilize

8. rice transplanting (插秧)
sowing
crops
ploughing
Farming
weather &climate
irrigating (灌溉)
rice transplanting (插秧)

9. ploughing (犁田)

10. seeding
fertilizing
(施肥)

11. irrigating 灌溉
transplanting 插秧

12. harvesting
winnowing (扬谷)

13. rice

14. Answer the following questions:
What is the main food in all East Asian and Southeast Asian countries?
Rice. It is said that there are 2.4 billion people to eat rice every day throughout the world.

15. What do you think would happen if tomorrow there was suddenly no rice to eat?
suffer from starvation and starve to death
feel scared / be panic (惊慌)
fight for food, even kill each other
and the whole country would get into trouble.

16. If you had the chance to do something to help end hunger in the world, what would you do?

17. preventing the pests from eating our crops
developing the technology to…
improving the quality of the soil
How to solve hunger?
making good use of the waste land
inventing a new kind of food…

18. A Pioneer For All People
What do you predict this passage is going to talk about?

19. Father of Hybrid Rice

20. Dr Yuan Longping (袁隆平博士)
He is father of hybrid rice (杂交水稻), who was awarded “the Nobel Prize of Asia”. He received the honor for his great contributions (贡献) to hybrid rice research and work he did to improve rice production in developing countries. Now he is head of the National Hybrid Rice Research and Development Center in Hunan Province, China (中国湖南省国家杂交水稻研究与发展中心). He is called a pioneer for all people.
Dr Yuan Longping (袁隆平博士)

21. The text is about a(n) 1. ___________ _______ named Yuan Longping who made a great contribution to finding ways to 2. ______________.
agricultural
pioneer  
grow more rice

22. Match the following headings with the right paragraphs.
A PIONEER FOR ALL PEOPLE
Para A. Dr Yuan’s dreams.
Para B. Dr Yuan’s personality.
Para C. Dr Yuan’s biography.
Para D. Dr Yuan’s appearance
and his achievement.

23. Careful reading
Read the text carefully and fill in the blanks.
Yuan Longping
Appearance
_________ face and arms, slim and strong body
sunburnt

24. developed super hybrid rice became the first __________________
in the world to grow high output rice
helps the UN reduce _______ in the
world
Achievements
agricultural pioneer
hunger

25. Experiences
born in 1930 and __________ from
Southwest Agricultural College in 1953
finding ways to grow more rice has been
his life _____
to ________ his knowledge in less
developed countries such as India and
Vietnam
graduated
goal
circulate

26. Personalities
is satisfied with his life
doesn’t care about being famous
gives a large amount of money to help
others to do their research in
___________
has many dreams and never gives up
loves and ________ his people
agriculture
care for

27. ________
Dreams
to produce a kind of rice that could _____ more people
to _______ his rice so that it can be
grown around the globe
feed
export

28. True (T) or False (F)
1. Yuan Longping became the first agricultural pioneer in the world to grow super hybrid rice at the age of More than 60% of the rice in the world is from the hybrid strain. 3. According to the text, farmers in China are producing rice harvests nearly 4 times as large as that in 1950. F F T

29. Choose the best answers.
1. What does the word “battle” refer to in the second paragraph?
A. The low rice output.
B. Ridding the world of hunger.
C. Fighting against farming.
D. The freedom to do research.

30. 2. From the passage, we can know ______.
A. Yuan Longping is not a pioneer but a scientist in the research of the hybrid rice
B. Yuan’s parents are both agricultural scientists
C. more than 60% of the rice produced in the world is from the hybrid strain
D. using the hybrid rice, farmers are producing harvests twice as large as before

31. 3. It can be inferred from the text that ______.
A. Yuan knew the importance of rice import
B. Yuan is interested in playing the violin
C. Yuan is proud of his achievements
D. Yuan’s rice are grown in many countries

32. Even if Dr.Yuan’s dreams come true, can this really solve starvation?

33. Answer these questions based on your understanding of the passage.
Why did Yuan Longping want to increase the rice output when he was young?
Yuan Longping wanted to increase the rice output because he saw many people go hungry when he was young.

34. 2. Is Yuan Longping more of a scientist or more of a farmer
2. Is Yuan Longping more of a scientist or more of a farmer? Do you think he is a businessman? Give your reasons.
I think he is more of a scientist, although he works in the fields like a farmer. His main purpose is not to make a profit for himself but to study agriculture and use that knowledge to improve farming for farmers everywhere. I do not think he is a businessman, because his goal is not to make money.

35. 3. How would you describe Yuan Longping’s personality
3. How would you describe Yuan Longping’s personality? Use three or four adjectives.
Because of his work with developing hybrid rice, it seems that Yuan Longping must be a very patient and careful man. He didn’t give up but kept working on his project. He also seems to be a very kind man, who cares for others. He wants to use his invention to help hungry people around the world.

36. 4. Yuan Longping was able to develop a successful agricultural product when thousands of other farmers could not. What do you think is the main reason for his success?
I think Yuan Longping was successful because he kept working and did not give up. He was also very motivated to succeed and help other farmers around China.

37. 5. Yuan Longping thinks that a person with too much money has more rather than fewer troubles. Do you agree or disagree? Why?
I mostly agree. I think being rich can cause a lot of problems, but it really depends on the life and attitude of the person who is rich. People who are rich certainly have different problems from people who are not.

38. 6. Yuan Longping developed super hybrid rice to help Chinese farmers and hungry people around the world. Can you think of any other major development that would make a great difference to world hunger? Write out your idea and then compare it with your partner.

39. I think developing other hybrid grains would make a great difference in the problem of world hunger. Hybrid grains that can survive in very dry or very hot areas would be very useful in Africa and other areas. Hybrid grains that cannot easily be killed by insects and diseases would be useful around the world.

40. Discuss in groups of four.
1. Choose one of these questions
and discuss in groups.
1) What advantages do you see in Yuan Longping’s life?
2) What disadvantages do you see in Yuan Longping’s life?

41. 2. Discuss in groups.
Would you like to have a life like his? Why or why not?

42. Writing a poster (海报) for the text.
Finish the exercises 1 and 2 on page 11.