This is the VOA Special English Development Report.
This Saturday night at eight thirty, all the lights will be shut off
at the Tokyo Tower in Japan. The Brandenburg Gate in Berlin and the
Eiffel Tower in Paris are also expected to go dark. So is the Empire
State Building in New York and buildings in other cities around the
world.
The lights will stay off for one hour for an event called Earth Hour.
The observance is organized by a conservation group, the World Wide
Fund for Nature, also known as the World Wildlife Fund.
For the fourth year, people are being urged to turn off their lights
for one hour to call attention to the issue of climate change. The group
says climate change is one of the greatest threats facing wildlife and
nature.
The first Earth Hour was held in two thousand seven in Sydney,
Australia. Organizers said more than two thousand businesses and two
million people took part.
Since then, Earth Hour has grown into an international event. People
in more than four thousand cities in eighty-eight countries took part
last year.
Organizers say more than one hundred countries and territories have
promised their official support this year. This will be the first Earth
Hour for countries including Kuwait, Qatar, Kosovo, Madagascar, Nepal,
Cambodia and Panama.
At least nineteen of the fifty American states are planning to take
part in the two thousand ten Earth Hour observance. The event organizers
recently announced that one of the latest states to join was Missouri.
Governor Jay Nixon has agreed to shut off the lights in the dome of
the state capitol building. He says when it comes to saving energy and
money, big changes start with small steps like turning out the lights.
Will you be turning off your lights this Saturday night to observe
Earth Hour? Do you think about what the organizers call your
"environmental footprint," and try to reduce harmful effects? Is climate
change a concern for you?
Here is a chance to practice your English. Go to
voaspecialenglish.com to comment on this story and other programs. You
can share your thoughts and read what other people are saying.
★ 생각나는 질문
1. 불 1시간 끄는 날은 누가 주최했을까?
-> Earth Hour, 4년전 World Wide Fund for Nature라는 기금에서 첫 실시 (호주)
2. 얼마의 효과가 있을까?
-> 이런 내용은 없다만, 현재 100개국에서 참가하고 있다니 금액적으로 충분한 이펙트가 있을테고
그보다 홍보면에서 최고의 효과가 있을 거 같다. (요새 날씨봐라.. 이거랑 관련이 정말 있는지는
Obama's 'Blueprint for Reform' in Education Goes to Congress
Goal is for all students to be able to
graduate from high school "ready for college and a career" by 2020. But
teachers unions and other groups object to parts of the plan.
17
March 2010
Photo: AP
Education Secretary Arne Duncan answers a
question about the No Child Left Behind law in West Virginia last May
To download a copy of this story, right-click on the MP3 link at
the top right of the page and save it.
This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
President Obama sent Congress a proposal this week to rewrite the
main federal education law. The current version of the law, signed by
George W. Bush eight years ago, is known as the No Child Left Behind
Act. That name would go away.
The current policy calls for every student to be able to pass state
tests in reading and math by two thousand fourteen. All schools must
show yearly progress toward this goal. But states decide how much
students need to know to show "proficiency."
President Obama's goal is that every student should graduate from
high school -- in his words -- "ready for college and a career." The
target date for schools is twenty twenty. The president described the
plan in his weekly radio and Internet address on Saturday.
BARACK OBAMA:" What this plan recognizes is that while the federal
government can play a leading role in encouraging the reforms and high
standards we need, the impetus for that change will come from states and
from local schools and school districts."
Under the new proposal, states and school systems would compete for
federal grants. The idea is similar to the administration's four billion
dollar Race to the Top competition to reform schools.
Struggling schools could receive money for teacher improvement and
for developing plans for success. The lowest performing schools would
face changes such as replacing teachers and the principal or being
closed.
The administration sent its general ideas to Congress in what it
called "A Blueprint for Reform" to develop the next education law. Ann
Bryant is executive director of the National School Boards Association.
Her group worked with the Department of Education on the plan. She says
it is a good start but still needs work. For example:
ANNE BRYANT: "There is no research that says that if you fire the
principal you're going to get better results. There's no research that
says if you fire half the faculty you're going to get good results.
There is very little research that [says] that chartering or bringing in
an outside management company may get you better results. And there is
zero research that says closing the school necessarily helps those
children."
The plan would reward effective schools and teachers with money and
other recognition. But leaders of the nation's largest teachers unions
criticized the administration's "blueprint."
Dennis Van Roekel of the National Education Association said it
"still relies on standardized tests to identify winners and losers." He
also expressed disappointment that states would have to compete for
money.
Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers said the plan
appears to place all the responsibility on teachers, but gives them
"zero percent authority."
And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy
Steinbach. I'm Steve Ember.
You can listen to this story with the player or right-click on the MP3 link at upper right and save the file to your computer.
This is the VOA Special English Development Report.
The name sounds funny but the idea is no joke: a personal toilet called the Peepoo. Anders Wilhelmson is the Swedish inventor of the idea. He wants to give poor people in developing countries a simple way to improve their lives.
The toilet is a single-use bag made of environmentally friendly plastics. The inside is treated with urea, a chemical commonly used as fertilizer. A natural reaction kills harmful organisms in the waste. It reduces the waste to fertilizer that Anders Wilhelmson says is safe for growing food.
Anders Wilhelmson: "When the feces is sanitized, all the pathogens are inactivated and killed, it is a valuable fertilizer. It's full of [nutrients] that we need so, you can just bury it in a pot and grow whatever you like."
The hotter the weather, the more quickly the waste breaks down into ammonia to be taken up by plants. Anders Wilhelmson says the sanitation process can take as little as a couple of hours or as long as two to four weeks.
He is an architect and a professor at Sweden's Royal Institute of Technology. He became interested in the idea of sanitation after taking part in a research project on the social and political development of cities. One of the most common complaints he heard in developing countries was the lack of toilets.
He worked with others to design the invention. He launched the project in two thousand five, and the next year started a company called Peepoople.
The company is beginning production in Nairobi. It expects to start selling the bags in August in Kenya and Bangladesh. Full production could reach about half a million bags a day.
Peepoople plans to sell the bags for two to three cents each. Anders Wilhelmson says people can get back ten times what they paid by using the resulting fertilizer to grow vegetable gardens.
The United Nations says more than two and a half billion people around the world do not have good sanitation. Many have no choice but to use the outdoors. Poor sanitation leads to infectious diseases that kill more than one and a half million people a year, mostly young children.
Jack Sim is the founder of the World Toilet Organization, a nonprofit group working to improve conditions.
Jack Sim: "This is quite an unacceptable situation given the fact that we are all living in [the] modern world. And strangely, many of them [own] radio, television, hand phone and no toilet."
He says the "sanitation marketplace" and inventions like this one are the best way to help people meet a most basic need.
And that's the VOA Special English Development Report, written by June Simms. You can find transcripts and MP3s of our programs at voaspecialenglish.com. I’m Steve Ember.
★ 생각나는 질문
1. 분뇨가 거름이 되는 과학적 설명이 있을까?
-> 자세하진 않지만 있었음. 분뇨를 넣은 백 내부에 요소가 처리되어 자연적으로 유해성분을 없앰.
그것이 좋은 거름이 되기도 함
2. 쉽게 이해되는지.. 동의하는지.. 자극적 소재의 낚시글은 아닌지
-> 이해는 잘 됨. 그리고 인상적임. 개선의 범위를 넘어 위생+거름+화장실 문제까지 연결시키는
비즈니스 모델 창출에 박수를..
3. 실제 저소득층에 도움이 될 만한지?
-> UN에서 사주면 도움이 되겠지. 누가 1년 후를 위해 2,3달러를 내고 쉬야를 할까..
