National sport
National holidays
Famous people

Write down 18-20 sentences about the country.

b) Writing an advertisement

You should write an advertisement about the UK/ the USA/ Canada/ Australia to

attract tourists.

Part III. HUMAN-ENVIRONMENTAL INTERACTION

Unit I. Ecosystems

Learn the collocations.

II. Complete the sentences using the words from the table.

1. Ecosystems n size.

2. Ecotourism promotes of ecosystems.

3. An ecosystem all life forms living within a water-based

environment.

4. Ecosystem is the return of a damaged ecological system to a stable, healthy, and

sustainable state.

5. All ecosystems in the same way even in vastly different habitats.

6. The of an ecosystem implies that the ecosystem can survive over time.

7. Ecosystems do not in isolation from each other; they form a network of

ecosystems that constitute the global system of the biosphere.

III. Read and translate the text. What's an ecosystem?

An ecosystem is a unit made up of two parts:

♦ living things (plants, animals, bacteria)

♦ and their non-living surroundings or environment climate.

air, water, soil, and the

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Biotic

Ecosystem (

Abiotic

Plant community Animal community Microbial community

Atmosphere Soil/Geological substrate

In any ecosystem, the living things interact with the environment and each other. For example, caterpillars in a wood breathe the air, feed on leaves, and get eaten by birds. If it gets too cold, they die.

How big is an ecosystem?

An ecosystem is any size you choose to study. It could be a pond, a field, a wood, the tropical rainforest, or even the whole Earth.

How does an ecosystem work?

An ecosystem is a bit like a canteen where living things eat. Every ecosystem works in the same way. 1) The plants use sunlight, water, and nutrients from the soil to produce their own food. (So they are called producers).

2) The animals feed on the plants, or each other. (So they're called consumers). There are following types of consumers:

• Herbivores—which feed on plants e.g. rabbit, insect.

• Carnivores—which feed on other animals e.g. fox, lion, shark.

• Omnivores—which feed on both plants and animals e.g. humans, rats, many birds.

• Detritivores—which feed on dead organisms e.g., earth worm, crab. ants.

3) Fungi and bacteria feed on dead and waste material, and make things break down or rot. (So they're called decomposers). They recycle nutrients that the plants can use again. Without plants, all other living things would die.

Food chains and food webs

Below is a food chain. It shows what eats what. The arrow means eaten by. plant —► caterpillar —* wood mouse —*fox rose —> greenfly —> ladybird —* sparrow —> sparrowhawk Food chains always start with plants. You can draw them for any ecosystem. Often several consumers eat the same food. For example, in an oak wood, both caterpillars and aphids (a type of fly) feed on oak leaves.

So food chains link to form a food web. The complete food web can be large and

c omplex.

ECOSYSTEMS How we humans fit in Unlike most animals, we've spread all over the world.

♦ We have moved into every ecosystem (although some climates don't suit us too well).

♦ Our numbers have grown quickly. Now there are' over 6.4

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billion of us.

• We consume a lot. Over 40% of the plants now growing on the Earth will be consumed by us and our livestock (our cows, sheep ...).

• We use a lot of land. Not just to live on, but to grow food, and provide water and fuels, and dump waste, and so on. Experts say we each *use' 2 hectares of land (about 1.5 football pitches) in our lifetime. This is called our ecological footprint.

There are problems with this

• The more land we use up, the less there is for the Earth's other 6 million species.

• As we've spread through ecosystems, we've tended to take them over - and drive many other species to extinction.

• In places, we've treated the soil so badly that we've ruined it.

• We burn a lot of fossil fuels, and now we think this is causing global warming. That will affect every ecosystem on the Earth.

We can change

We need food, fuel, water, and houses. But we're learning that we must get them in a sustainable way. This means in a way that doesn't harm us, or other species, and isn't wasteful.

IV. Give the Russian equivalents for the following words.

(Sfe^M

producer consumer decomposer food chain food web biotic

'uJ!-tjC£>JJ^

to feed on

nutrient

to affect ecosystem

to dump waste

extinction

global warming

w£eiMJJi-^

Learn the words by heart.

V. Mark the sentences T (true), F (false) or N (no information).

1. The size of an ecosystem can be different.

2. The food chains consist of food webs.

3. Predators are carnivores.

4. Herbivores and omnivores eat plants.

5. The non-living parts of an organism's environment are called biotic factors.

VI. Answer the following questions.

1. What does an ecosystem consist of?

2. Describe the roles of producers, consumers and decomposers in a food chain.

3. What is a food chain/ web? Give your examples.

4. Describe the role of humans in an ecosystem.

5. What are the main problems connected with human impact on ecosystems?

6. How can people's actions cause global warming?

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VII. Match the words with their definitions.

affect (v)	to use sth, especially fuel, energy or time
cause (v)	a situation in which a plant or animal, etc. stops existing
nutrient (n)	material that was formed over millions of years from the remains of animals or plants
fossil fuel (n)	a substance that is needed to keep a living thing alive and to help it to grow
extinction (n)	to make sth happen, especially sth bad or unpleasant
consume (v)	to produce a change in sb/ sth

VIII. Complete the sentences with the words from Ex. IV

1. The bad weather problems for many farmers.

2. Plants draw minerals and other from the soil.

large amounts of

3. The electricity industry

4. The government launched a campaign to save wild koalas from .

5. Nicotine adversely the functioning of the heart and arteries.